An oppressive heat rushed forth to meet us upon exiting the portal on the other side, and immediately I felt sweat bloom across my body almost as fast as it evaporated. Sulphur and brimstone, ash and smoke forced itself into our unwilling throats and lungs and for several moments Viconia and I went almost bent over with coughing fits. Tearing strips from our clothing we immediately fashioned masks of cloth and leather that while seeming to stop the majority of the taste of ash from catching in the back of our throats it didn’t do anything for the rotten-egg stink or the sheer temperatures assailing us.

  We found ourselves in a world of fire and magma, of volcanic rock blasted by millennia of destructive processes and almost carved from the very depths of the world itself. A sky of hellfire boiled overhead, clouds of noxious gasses and storms of molten metal clashing together with the sounds of a collapsing armour factory. Obsidian spikes and strange constructions of serrated black glass reached for the sky and directly in front of us and the glowing portal back to Mundus was a tower that seemed capable of tearing the heavens down with sheer spite.

  It was a world inimical to life, hostile to all those except it’s equally hostile inhabitants that strangely enough weren’t waiting on this side of the gate for intruders.

  This fact alone would have been enough to be concerning if it wasn’t for the signs of intense fighting within the portal’s vicinity. Blood, both mortal and daedric was soaking into the ground and already congealed by the heat and everywhere corpses lay where they had fallen. Mailed bodies of Kvatch guards in their Wolf’s-head surcoats left pitiful remains where they had died. Most lay clutching their various injuries, contorted with pain and agony. Others appeared as though they had died fending off attacks that had left them little more than butchered hunks of meat held together in the semblance of humanoid form by the constricting nature of their armour.

  Viconia and I shared a glance, noting that there were dozens of daedric corpses. Some the same stunted imps and reptilian monsters that had assailed the barricades outside of Kvatch, others were towering humanoids encased in obsidian armour that seemed to be forged in blood. They were towering creatures, easily seven or eight feet tall, black leathery skin and ridges and spikes of bone erupting across their bodies. Most were clad in thick plate armour that was horrific to behold, others dressed in robes that appeared to be made from some form of tanned hide that I didn’t want to think too much about. Each were surrounded by one or more corpses of city guards, and I knew with a glance around at the carnage that there could not be many survivors of such a battle.

  “Well, where to now?” I asked Viconia, looking over to her where she stood surrounded by the dead.

  She simply pointed to the spined tower rising before us and the stone bridge that crossed the moat of lava surrounding it. Around us it appeared as though there was a veritable sea of the material as far as we could see. “The energies of whatever is keeping this gate open is within the tower.”

  “And I bet that it is right at the bloody top as well.” I sighed, rubbing at my temples in a vain attempt to force the growing desire for blood into the back of my mind. It was growing more and more powerful now and unlike the days previous there wasn’t a deer nearby to fend it off long enough to remain functional.

  Carefully we picked our way through the carnage, ignoring the dead where they had fallen but keeping our eyes peeled for any further foes. Several of the corpses had been eaten, great hunks of flesh rent from their bones or in a few cases entire body parts were missing with no clue to their whereabouts. Others had been placed with almost a reverent care onto the jagged spires and spikes spearing from the ground, impaled in blood-chilling fashions that made my gorge rise as we passed by their grotesque bodies and anguished faces. Out of the guards who had assaulted the portal we doubted that there would be many, if any at all still alive.

  Of a greater concern however to me at least was the overwhelming lack of opposition or even traces of life within the area. Other than the flitting forms of winged creatures alighting on the upper levels of the tower or wheeling high within the tortured sky there was nothing to suggest the forces or numbers of creatures and beasts capable of devastating an entire city of thousands. There was nothing to even suggest that there was anything within the area at all, even as we made our way to the towering edifice and pushed inside the cavernous doorway imbedded into the base.

  For dozens, if not hundreds of meters and easily rivalling the White Gold Tower in scale, the daedric construction rose up above us. While thin like a needle in comparison to the ancient Ayleid tower of the Imperial City, this structure was utilitarian to the extreme if one looked past the walls weeping gore and the layers of spikes and jagged serrations festooning every surface. Savage intent was in every grove and marking in the building and as I lifted my head to gaze up the tower’s hollow core I could see a burning orb of fire many dozens of metres above where we stood.

  Viconia had no concerns and simply picked a direction and began moving, finding a staircase that she climbed with inexhaustible energy. There was little more for me to do but to follow, my bow in hand and arrow gripped tightly between forefingers and thumb and ready to be pulled back and loosed in an instant.

  With every step my desire to feed grew ever more crushing and it wasn’t long before I could feel the physical changes begin to rip through my body as the later stages of the disease finally took hold. The skin of my face began to tingle and feel tighter, the bones of my jaw and brow pressing against their fleshy prison and soon I felt a strange sense of power and agility flow through my veins. I felt stronger and faster, but so did the thirst and soon I was matching Viconia’s pace up the winding staircases of the tower, holding myself back but yet physically hunting her simultaneously as the rhythmic drumbeat of her heart urged me on.

  She was little more than half a dozen steps ahead of me, my grip on my bow and arrow weakening as I staggered to the top with every hint of utter exhaustion filling me despite the surging strength filling my limbs. We were easily halfway up the towering edifice, reaching a level where tiny rooms branched off in several directions and another spiralling staircase rose up into the wall in which it was set. Once more there was nothing in sight, living or daedric in nature and I knew that what little self-control I had left was badly frayed to the point of nonexistence.

  My bow clattered to the floor and the sound echoed through the tower like a thunderclap and I dropped to my knees, groaning with the exertion of ignoring my body’s cry for blood. I could feel my arms tense and budge with unnatural strength, the burns suddenly feeling as though they were non-existent and my fists clenching so tightly that the leather of the gloves split around the knuckles. Under my mask I could feel my face shifting, incisors lengthening to dangerous points that split my lips in a ghastly smile of a nocturnal predator even as my jaw twitched and grew stronger for a more powerful bite. The darkness within the tower seemed to shift and blur, before dropping away as though perfectly lit by lanterns. The man that I once was screamed outrage and despair into the void that was now my soul and turning to see what had happened Viconia stared with confusion at the sight.

  “What in all the hells is wrong with you Jaluk?” she spat, taking a single pace forward with her sword gripped tightly in her hand.

  I lifted my head and stared at her from my spot on the floor, face tightening and eyes narrowing as I smelt the powerful aroma of her blood that I could almost taste. The beast had fully gained control now as I rose to my feet, my mask falling away from my changed features and revealing to her a creature clothed in my flesh.

  Spitting curses, she staggered backwards, not in fear but in complete surprise and shock at my appearance. My lengthened incisors split my bottom lip slightly as I snarled, now completely bestial and almost heeding nothing more than the song of her blood. Unnoticed to the both of us initially one of the doors to the room opened and the plate armoured form of a daedra was revealed.

  The surprise was total, and it is a hard choice to determine who was more shocked between myself, Viconia and the daedric warrior. For a handful of seconds it stood as though a statue, staring with an all-too-human look of surprise on its face as it realised that the tower had been breached.

  With a roar that would’ve woken the dead the Dremora ripped its sword from the ring of metal clasping it to its side and stepped forward to rush the two of us. My own roar made it sound like the mewling of a child in comparison, causing not only Viconia to step back with the first signs of fear on her ebony features but actually stopping the daedra’s advance in its tracks as it struggled to comprehend exactly what it was facing. The seconds it delayed however spelt its doom as I threw myself upon it with blind fury, the vampire that had taken control of my body acting to remove the threat to its prey by the most efficient means necessary.

  The Dremora’s armour was fashioned like a facsimile of the tower; all edges were gleaming and serrated and portions appeared to be weeping a foul ichor that stained whatever it touched. The sword in its hand could’ve cut me in half without slowing if it had connected but I had suddenly found myself faster and stronger than I could’ve ever imagined. It’s first slice hit nothing but air as I contemptuously leant aside, feeling the blade’s passage across my face as my sword found its way into my hand and hacked down onto the dremora's. In a gout of blood its hand came away, the daedric nature of its plate armour proving insufficient to protect against the power behind my strike as the steel sword sheared through the blackened metal with surprising ease. It roared deafeningly into my ear as its hand and sword clattered to the floor, reaching with its remaining hand with no sign of pain or even acknowledging an injury that would’ve put a mortal on their knees.

  I danced out of its grasp, slicing at the black-red plate and realising that the armour was all too familiar to me. In the tiniest part of my mind that wasn’t consumed by the animalistic nature of a starved vampire I realised that it was almost identical to the armour worn by the Emperor’s assassins. With that thought in mind my attacks somehow increased in ferocity. Its fingers were crushed by a strike from my sword’s pommel, and an eye was cut out of its face despite the scowling plate helm that covered it’s red-black skin from sight. Screaming now in rage and indignation the creature redoubled its efforts even as I began to saw its head from its shoulders with the edge of the sword. Roaring in triumph and yanking to release the last threads of leathery flesh I pulled the decapitated head from its shoulders, feeling it’s ichor splatter my face and chest and filling my nostrils with the stench of sulphur.

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  The moment of peace was short lived however as it was not alone. Alerted to its cries of anger and my own blood thirsty roars, several more of the hulking daedra had rushed into the room from down the stairs and through the larger of the doors and filled the air with their guttural roars of pleasure at seeing foes.

  Viconia sprang into action, leaping and twirling and never once stopping in place. Using her own momenteum she was able to place an incredible amount of power behind her attacks as she stabbed with pinpoint precision at any perceived weakness in their armoured forms. One dropped almost immediately as she punched the tip of her gleaming sword under its jaw, forcing it to fold up under itself in death. By the time its face had slammed lifelessly into the floor with enough force to break its nose she was already moving, slicing at the grasping hands of its fellows and parrying a pair of sword strikes that tried to bat her from the air.

  Others came for me, leaving their fellow daedra to deal with the quick moving Drow while they came to repay me for the death of their kin. They were enormous brutes of muscle and armour, wielding swords as though they were little more than metallic extensions of their arms while swinging them with such blinding speed that had I not been corrupted I would’ve died in seconds. Instead, purely running on instinct one of them dropped shrieking to the ground with a dagger buried to the hilt from the side of its leg under a kneecap, trying and failing to grasp the hilt of a weapon too small for the oversized gauntlets to grasp. Another lost an arm but fought on regardless of the fact, seemingly unhindered while what passed for blood was spurting from the severed limb from above the elbow.

  It was five against two and soon turned to an even four as Viconia launched a flesh blistering magical assault upon one of the Dremora. It shrieked as the flesh of its face was undone, sloughing away in its hands even as its eyes exploded and ran in bloody runnels in the bones of its skull. Dropping to the floor, the corpse gently steamed from a face scoured clean of flesh and suddenly the survivors were a lot warier of the intruders in their midst.

  Shudders rippling through the floor announced another foe for Viconia and I to face. Alerted by the sounds of combat the hulking form of a daedric champion appeared descending the stairs, clutching an enormous Warhammer that made all mortal crafts seem insignificant in comparison. Even with my newly acquired strength there was no way I could’ve lifted such a weapon of destruction, and even unarmoured the Dremora easily outweighed a legionary in full plate and could’ve wrestled a warhorse to the ground.

  Enormous horns protruded from its bare temples, pushing forward and angling inwards. It was obvious that this Dremora was lord over its kin not only from its sheer size but from the way they immediately made deference to it despite the raging melee. Its footsteps crunched into the floor with earth-shattering force, striding towards me with utter fury filling its horrific features. Raising the entirety of the Warhammer above its head its intention of smashing me into unrecognisable paste in the floor was clear to behold.

  The head of the hammer thundered into the ground where I was standing, barely missing me even with my recently enhanced abilities. The Markynaz bellowed, roaring with such force that the sound alone was a physical blow to the body. Ripping the Warhammer out of the floor in an explosion of obsidian shards and dust it continued to swing ruinous attacks that would’ve pulped a troll. The two lesser Dremora that had been facing me attempted to surround and corral me towards their brute master but the beast occupying my flesh and mind had different ideas.

  One dropped to the floor with a clatter of metal, my last dagger jutting from its helmet as a result of a perfect throw. Six inches of steel imbedded itself in its brain before it realised that I was moving and this left its kin and master remaining to face me. Snaking out I sheared through daedric plate, flesh and bone with my sword, snapping the blade from the force of a strike so powerful that left the jagged hunk of steel imbedded deep in the creature’s ribcage. It gurgled uselessly, clawing at me in the vain attempt to pull itself across the floor while I faced down the eight-foot-tall Dremora Lord that now seemed even more infuriated.

  Crunches of masonry and roars of utter hatred echoed through the room, drowning out all others even as Viconia held her own against the last of her adversaries. It swung its Warhammer with wild abandon, crushing through the walls and floors with every swing and raging at my ability to duck and weave out of the way at the last second. Cursing in its own guttural tongue it lashed out with a serrated gauntlet as I stepped in to exploit an opening in its guard, moving faster than any mortal but still missing me by the closest of margins. With my ruined sword in hand I lashed out at its exposed face, it’s armour proving to be too much even for my enhanced strength to penetrate. Striking at the weaker exposed flesh I was rewarded with an arc of blood as it carved part of its cheek away from the gleaming black bone underneath.

  Like the others, such an injury provided little more than discomfort to the daedra, as it merely redoubled its efforts to kill me and sucked its breath through a hole in its face that exposed jagged teeth. I had lost myself in the orgy of bloodlust, the last barriers of my will crumbling under the vampiric assault on my mind. Little more than a starving beast I had lost myself wholly to the creature and when the Markynaz’s foul blood splattered my face and open, snarling mouth the last thread of control I still retained snapped as surely as though it was cut with a mithril blade.

  I leapt, moving through the hulking Dremora Lord’s guard like mist and lashing at its face with fingers as strong as iron. Flailing wildly, it battered away at me, its flesh-pulping blows wasting their strength on air even as I managed to clamber on top of its back. My fingers dug into its skull, grasping a horn in one hand and ripping its head aside even as it managed to grab my wrist with bone crushing force.

  Pain flared up my arm as the hand gripping its horns broke under the bear-trap like grip of the Dremora but the beast was not to be denied with victory so close at hand. Incisors gleaming, pain suddenly little more than an abstract emotion I latched onto the creature’s throat and bit deeply into its rancid flesh.

  Hot sulphuric liquid surged between my lips as the Dremora went into spasms at the impossibility of my actions. Freezing and all muscles tensing up with the shock and intrusion of my fangs into its throat it stopped all attempts to pry me loose, instead aching it’s back and falling to its knees. My wrist was broken, shattered from the constricting grip but it was far away, barely even noticeable as wave upon wave of corrupted, demonic ichor spurted into my throat that I drank greedily.

  It was no warm metallic tang of deer blood, or even the alluring, imaginary taste of Viconia’s supple flesh but of brute and overwhelming power unlike anything that walked the mortal world. Even as my body rebelled against the corruption contained within the unholy liquid the vampire revelled in the sensation, drinking greedily and spilling it over my face as I coughed, gagged and forced more and more of it into my stomach with every swallow. Enormous, unbelievable strength pushed through my limbs and suddenly everything was sent spiralling out of control. I could feel Viconia’s heartbeat, taste the sweat upon her body and see the tiniest of muscle movements as time itself seemed to slow as though encased in treacle. The surviving Dremora were shocked almost into submission at my actions, and I could feel myself become bloated with the Markynaz’s gore even as it spilled down the front of my armour and chin in splatters. It was pure power in liquid form and even as I began to vomit up the wads of blood that my body no longer had room for I could feel it surging through every vein like fire.

  I pulled my broken hand from the creatures grip as though it no longer had the strength to resist me. Bones knit in seconds, fingers straightening and knuckles hardening, twisting back into shape without any of the pain that should be associated with such a healing change. My jaw twisted out of shape, the bones of my skull suddenly snapping with loud cracks as my whole face seemed to elongate and become more animalistic in appearance. Fingernails erupted into black claws of ivory, the very bones of my fingertips shifting and melding with the nails before pushing through the skin to match the hands of the Dremora themselves. Veins pulsed under my skin, sending the black ink-like corruption pumping through my body even as every muscle seemed to tighten and flex and grow with the overwhelming power. Even the teeth in my skull warped and mutated, twisting and melding into new forms as each tapered to a point until my entire maw was filled with elongated incisors that only a slaughterfish could hope to match.

  The Dremora lord suddenly seemed pitifully weak and I hammered my fist into the top of its skull, crushing it and sending bone shards through what passed for its brain. I had utterly lost control now, the overwhelming blood-stink permeating through my very soul as the horrific daedric corruption mixed with the vampiric curse in a new and sickening form. Only two other daedra remained standing, facing off against Viconia even as they forced her to back up against the wall with wild swings of their swords.

  Before the corpse of the Markynaz tumbled to the floor I had already leapt, covering the distance between myself and the remaining Dremora before they could even react to movement. The first fell quickly, screaming in surprise and shock as I battered through its defences and pulped its head and chest with blows from my fists that made a mockery of its daedric plate. Its kin, reacting quickly to the greater threat turned from attacking Viconia but didn’t survive much longer than its dead brother. I blocked its wild strikes, stepping in close and kicking a leg out with such force that its entire knee gave way and the greaves of its armour caved in from the blow. It fell even as I simply slapped away its futile attempts to hold me, grasping it around the wrist with enough force that the serrated gauntlet crumpled under my fingers. Keening loudly and trying to pry my hands off it, there was a considerable struggle as I secured my grasp, pressed my boot into its chest before heaving and tearing its entire arm from of its shoulder with a wash of blood.

  The room fell silent as the creature died from a combination of blood loss and my boot slamming into its throat with the crackle of a broken windpipe. The room was in compete disarray, steaming corpses and chunks of daedric flesh scattered everywhere with only the hiss and gurgling of bodily fluids to break the growing silence. The level of fatigue that suddenly crashed down hard on my mind was complete and smothering in its grasp as all the adrenaline and the vampiric thirst vanished like dried leaves in the wind. My back was to Viconia and I couldn’t bear to turn around and see whatever expression or reaction she may have to what she had witnessed. The pain and shame was overwhelming almost as terribly as the realisation of what I had become exploded into my mind.

  Between the fatigue and the self-loathing, I could no longer bring myself to care about my fate or Viconia’s reaction. I half expected to feel the piecing or slicing kiss of a blade on my flesh as I dropped to my knees as the last vestiges of the Vampire slid back into my subconscious and my skin and bones returned to their previous human forms. I was sated, blood-drunk on the power and corrupt substance that I had forcefully, willingly consumed from the polluted veins of the Dremora Lord. At that point, with the tiniest shred of sanity and humanity left in my mind I knelt there, wishing for Viconia to end my life and free me from the curse.

  Instead the indefinable material of the floor rushed up to my face and I blacked out as the fatigue finally gained a proper hold on my shattered mind.