Torin's eyes opened slowly, not to the jolt of adrenaline or the familiar groan of waking stiffness, but to a slow, creeping unease.
Something was… off.
It wasn't a clear thought. No alarm bells were ringing. It was a pure, animal instinct whispering in the back of his skull, a voice so faint it was barely a feeling: Something isn't right. Not dangerous. Not wrong, exactly. Just… not as it should be.
He lay still for a moment, listening. The common room below was silent. The only sounds were the distant cry of gulls and Echo's steady, rumbling breath. He looked around the room.
Golden slivers of morning light cut through the gaps in the closed shutters, painting bright stripes on the dusty floorboards. It was later than he usually slept, but that wasn't it.
He had nowhere to be until the ship's departure, and he'd intended to sleep in anyway.
With a grunt, he pushed himself out of bed. The floor was cold under his bare feet. His first stop was the door. He examined the simple alarm rune he'd inscribed on the air beside the frame the night before. It was still there, a faint, shimmering blue glyph, undisturbed. No one had tried to enter.
He turned and walked to the window, his gaze passing over Echo as he went. The bear was in her corner, contentedly gnawing on something. Since her back was to him, he couldn't make out what it was.
If she were a common dog, he'd have been lunging across the room, prying her jaws open in a panic. But Echo wasn't a pet. She was frighteningly intelligent, with an innate understanding of what was food, what was poison, and what was just interesting to chew.
She'd never eaten anything that made her sick. Whatever it was she got between her teeth, it's probably something she either fished out of Torin's pack or found under the bed, left behind by some other tenant of this room. Either way, it didn't seem consequential.
Shaking his head at the minor mystery, he continued to the window. The alarm spell there was also intact, glowing serenely. Untriggered.
Now he was genuinely confused. The room was secure. Nothing was missing. He spent the next twenty minutes conducting a slow, methodical inspection. He checked under the bed (nothing but dust).
He examined his pack, counting his gold, his soul gems, his spare clothes. All present. He ran a finger along the windowsill (just dust). He even checked the chamber pot (regrettably empty).
Everything was exactly as he'd left it. His armor was a piled heap where he'd dropped it. His axe leaned against the wall. His boots were by the bed.
Finally, he let out a long, frustrated breath. My mind's playing tricks on me. Too many years of expecting ambushes in the dark. The quiet safety of a (mostly) honest inn was making him paranoid.
He turned toward the washstand. The water in the basin was a murky, dark grey, swirled with the grime he'd scrubbed off last night. He sighed. No magical cleaning spells yet. He'd need to get someone to bring up fresh water.
Torin headed for the door, intent on bellowing for a maid or a stable boy to fetch some water. He yanked it open without ceremony, ready to issue a command.
The words died in his throat.
It wasn't the inn's dim hallway that greeted him. It was… nothing. A pure, absolute, lightless void. An infinite, dark abyss stretched before him, where floor, walls, and ceiling should have been. It wasn't just dark; it was an absence.
Instinctively, he took half a step back. His bare foot, which had been about to cross the threshold, found no purchase. There was no floorboard, no rug, just empty, chilling space. This wasn't someone having turned off the lights.
This was the door opening onto the end of the world.
Every last shred of sleepiness evaporated. His mind, already primed by the morning's unease, slammed into overdrive, trying to parse the impossible geometry, to find a logical anchor in this sudden, surreal nightmare.
He didn't get the chance.
A solid, furry THUMP hit him squarely between the shoulder blades. The force was immense, playful, and utterly unexpected. He was pitched forward, off-balance, with nothing to grab onto. With a startled, wordless shout, he tumbled headfirst out of the doorway and into the endless dark.
As he spun in the air, he managed to twist his head around for one last look back at the doorway—a rectangle of warm, sane light floating in the void.
Echo was standing in the frame on her hind legs. In one massive paw, she held a perfect, bright yellow wheel of cheese. With her other paw, she raised a single, middle claw in a gesture that was obscenely, unmistakably clear.
Bye.
Then, the door slammed shut. The rectangle of light vanished. Echo, the cheese, the door, the entire world he knew—gone.
Torin was alone, falling through an eternal, silent black.
His eyes twitched. A deep, profound, utterly resigned annoyance settled over him, cutting through the initial shock. Oh. Of course...
After what felt like a small eternity of weightless, disorienting freefall—a minute? An hour? Time had no meaning here—a shape finally began to resolve far, far below. A hard, flat white surface, rushing up to meet him with terrifying speed.
Normally, that would be the last thing you'd want to see.
Fortunately, Torin had made a habit of preparing for the worst, most ridiculous outcomes. His hand was already weaving through the air, fingers tracing the familiar, delicate pattern of a Featherfall spell.
A soft, emerald-green light enveloped him just as the ground seemed to be seconds away from making a very permanent impression.
His descent slowed from a terminal plummet to a gentle, controlled drift. He twisted his body in the air, orienting himself feet-down, and floated the last hundred feet like a dandelion seed on a breeze, landing with a soft pat on what felt like cold, smooth stone.
He looked around, the green glow of the spell fading from his skin. "Alright," he said to the oppressive, featureless darkness, his voice flat. "You've got my attention. Now what?"
A sharp THUD echoed behind Torin—the sound of wood striking stone. It was followed by a voice that was all shrill amusement and crackling, chaotic energy.
"Hah! Yer attention? If that's what ya think this is about, then yer crazier than I am, mortal!"
Hearing that voice, Torin felt a cold, primal shiver skate down his spine, settling in his gut like a lump of ice. Every instinct screamed to run, to fight, to do something.
However, he knew that was exactly what it wanted. Predictable. And predictable, in this particular situation, wasn't just dangerous—it was boring. And when you were faced with the Prince of Madness, being boring was a one-way ticket to having your bones turned into a novelty xylophone.
Slowly, with deliberate calm, Torin turned around.
His eyes met the speaker's.
They were a burning, demonic yellow, pits of insane intelligence and unfathomable whimsy that seemed to look straight through his skull and rattle the thoughts inside. Maintaining his mask of calm became an act of sheer will.
He gave the being a quick, assessing once-over. The clashing purple and yellow suit, garish and perfectly tailored. The wild, white hair and beard. The jaunty, twisted cane now planted on the stone floor. Each detail was a confirmation, a nail in the coffin of his hopes for a normal day. Uncle Sheo had come knocking. And he'd used a bear and a cheese wheel as his calling card.
Steeling his resolve, Torin forced his voice to remain level. "Are we inside my head," he asked, "or is this real?"
The Mad God's smile widened, a terrifying crescent of pure, manic delight. He answered with a question of his own, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, mocking whisper. "I don't know… do you think I look like fucking Vaermina, mortal?"
Torin shrugged, the gesture feeling stiff. "I wouldn't know what Lady Vaermina looks like. Nightmares aren't my area of expertise."
Sheogorath's smile thinned, the amusement in his eyes hardening into something sharper, more probing. "But ya do know what I look like, don't Ya?!" he hissed, leaning forward on his cane. "You know all kinds of things about me! Little tidbits! Stories! And that's exactly why you've been avoiding my glorious city like it's got the rattles all those years!"
He let out a sudden, sharp chuckle that bounced off the non-existent walls. "Pretty smart of ya, I gotta say… sneaking around in the shadow like a scared little skeever…"
The chuckle died. His yellow eyes blazed.
"BUT IT PISSES ME OFF NONETHELESS!"
The roar wasn't just loud; it seemed to warp the very air around them, a physical force that vibrated in Torin's teeth and made his very soul feel like a struck bell. He just stared, genuinely stunned into speechlessness, faced with a walking, talking natural disaster wearing a bad suit.
Sheogorath didn't seem to appreciate his silence.
The Prince's manic energy shifted, cooling into something petulant and dangerous. "Ignoring me now, are ya? Do you know what I hate even more than being avoided?"
He leaned in close, his yellow eyes inches from Torin's face. The smell of ozone and old cheese washed over him. "It's being ignored. It puts me in a biting mood. And Ya wouldn't like it when I'm bitey."
He straightened up, twirling his cane. "Your intestines wouldn't either. Nor yer appendix. Both of which are my favorites, by the way. Lovely texture."
The graphic, casual horror of the statement snapped Torin out of his daze. A cold sweat broke out on his back. He cleared his throat, the sound painfully loud in the sudden quiet.
"What… what makes you think I've been avoiding you?" he managed, forcing a thin, unconvincing smile onto his face. "I wouldn't even know where to find you, let alone how to avoid you. You're a… a Daedric Prince. You're everywhere and nowhere."
Sheogorath's grin widened, becoming a terrifying rictus of delight. "Ah, see! Just because you wouldn't know something doesn't mean you don't!" he sang, tapping his temple with a bony finger. "It just means you know something you're not supposed to know. A little secret. A peek behind the curtain. And that," he declared, pointing the cane directly at Torin's chest, "makes you a lot more interesting than the usual driveling supplicants."
He gave Torin a long, appraising up-and-down look, his head tilted like a bird examining a particularly puzzling worm. "But this isn't something you can talk your way out of, mortal. Wordplay is for bards and politicians. I like to deal in deeper currencies. Like sanity. And spleen."
Torin could only sigh, the sound heavy with resignation. So much for trying to talk his way out. Lying was clearly not an option—he didn't know if the Prince of Madness could detect a falsehood, but the risk of finding out by having his internal organs redecorated as party favors was too high.
He was trapped in a conversation with a god whose logic was a minefield, and whose patience was famously… flexible.
...
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