The Ebony Renegades (Skyrim)

chapter forty nine

(Ebon-shi pov)

As night fell I quietly left the base after leaving a letter to tell them where I'd be going as I headed towards the exit I was not surprised when my beloved was there to intercept me. "Ebon-shi, where do you think you're going?" Asadelf asked scoldingly with her arms crossed and she was tapping her foot against the ground knowing it was no use trying to lie to her I sighed before handing her the black envelope as she carefully took it from my hand and began to read it. After a few moments of reading through it, she looked back at me with a concerned look. "Another tournament of ten bloods? I thought that was only held rarely, you participated in the last one two years ago." She said almost yelling as I gestured for her to please keep her voice down so she doesn't accidentally wake the others. "Hun the last time you went out you came back broken and I can tell just by looking at you that that wound is not going to heal and hasn't healed, what are you trying to prove?" She asked before pulling me into her embrace resting her head on my shoulder as I wrapped my arms around her in turn. "According to the letter the winner of the tournament will get the artifact Fearstruck which is one of Lady Boethia's daedric artifacts one said to have been destroyed a long time ago. This could give us an extra edge that we need, especially now that we know that we may end up having to deal with the elites of the dominion, we need to have every possible advantage we can get." I explained my position as she led me over to the table and sat across from me I knew there was no point in arguing with her and that if I wanted to do this I would need to convince her. I sat across from her putting both my hands on the table in front of me as she mirrored my position as we spoke. "You know this could be dangerous, these are nine others of Boethia's chosen, more than likely highly trained killing machines how do you know she isn't going to use this as an opportunity to have them all gang up on you?" Asadelf attempted to reason and raise some good points as those were indeed aspects that lady Boethia would try to put a spin on the tournament itself. "You make good points, and that does sound like something she would do, but very well I will make sure I am extra careful." I attempted to reason again as she sighs seeing that there was no talking me out of this. "Ebon-shi, I love you, I want to have a family with you when this is all over. I dream of having a child, and you are the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, so promise me something." She said finally as I looked up to meet her gaze as her beautiful golden eyes were close to breaking into tears as she stood up walking around the table before smashing her lips onto mine and then whispering in my ear. "Promise me that if you are really going to do this, you will come back to me, back to us. That you will do whatever you have to do in order to return to me. Do you promise?" She asked as she carefully laid her head against mine as I couldn't help but feel guilty for leaving her here but I knew I had to do this. "I give you my word my love, I will do whatever I have to do to get back here to you, back to the team, and to the love of my life. Realizing how impulsive I was being at the moment I nearly forgot to take inventory on my supplies and prepare I walked to my room and prepared myself. I quickly had Yamma and Gentu enhance my weapons and armor for me and had Sabrina make some health regeneration portions for me. As I was in my room preparing while the others were making the preparations I had requested I closed my eyes remembering all the time we had spent together through the good and bad times, the laughs and tears, the hard and the easy times this group was truly the most magnificent and loyal of friends I could have ever hoped for. Which only gave me further determination to overcome this next tournament and return to my family in one piece. I placed all of my miscellaneous items in my chest in my room that me and Asadelf shared. After emptying my inventory I took off my dark leather backpack and carefully leaned it up against my chest not keeping anything on me that I wouldn't need. The only things I needed were the following my armor, my weapons, my skill, my intellect, and most importantly my will to survive and return safely. After a good half hour of preparing Sabrina and Yamma had brought the items that I had requested. I re-equipped my ebony boots, brawler ebony gauntlets, ebony helmet, ebony mail, and then equipped my weapons sheathing my ebony blade over my shoulder on my back while attaching the bow of shadows and shadowrend on my back as well as sheathing both of my ebony daggers horizontally on my lower back. I looked over and noticed there was a strange attachment underneath my left ebony brawler gauntlet I was quite curious about it before I flipped my wrist and was rather surprised at what happened smiling recognizing Gentu's contribution I finished preparing stuffing the potions Sabrina made me into a small pouch and tying it onto my side. As the Sun finally went down I made my way towards the entrance to make my way towards the shrine of Boethia where the tournament would take place. As I arrived at the exit to the base I was surprised seeing the entire group there waiting for me to see me off. One by one they approached to wish me luck which I appreciated it showed me how much confidence they had in me, how much they relied on me, and how much they cared for me. Gila approached first giving me a huge quiver of fresh ebony arrows. "May these arrows find your enemies hearts and bring you back home to us." Gila said hugging me before backing up as Severin approached. "I'm not much of a hugger, but I usually keep these with me it's a special poison I use that combines potent poison, potent paralysis poison, and weakness potion may it weaken your enemies so you can strike them down from the shadows." Severin put his hand on my shoulder before backing up as Shadow-step approached placing an amulet around my neck. "This was the first item I have ever stolen, I wear it because I believe it brings me luck, I now loan it to you may it bring you luck in your battle and bring you home to us." Shadow-step said backing up as Suvvan walked over although I was expecting him to give me a wedge of cheese I was quite surprised when he passed me a ring which I took in my hand. "May this ring guard your soul and bring you home safely old friend, may the nine watch over you." Suvvan said solemnly carefully punching my shoulder over backing up as Tully walked over. Putting his hand on my chest before using some type of spell that I didn't recognize before pulling his hand away. "That spell will increase your awareness to your surroundings, you will see things that remain hidden to the unseen eye, you will see things like a vampire does." Tully said backing away as Myra approached. She carefully hold something out from her blades boot before handing it to me. I was actually quite surprised seeing that it was a very rare Akaviri tanto.