If you are unfamiliar with DeviatesFish's 'Thu'um of A Distant Utopia' Skyrim crossover, you should probably go read that now.
Read it? Good. Please continue.
Well, apparently I just couldn't let all my Sheogorath snippets just lie there, so I brainstormed them into an entire spinoff. Enjoy.
And I did get DF's okay for this.
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"Into the Mind, of the Mind, of the Mind, of Madness"
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In retrospect, listening to the crazy man wandering the streets of Solitude might not have been a good idea. Actually agreeing to help him, even less so.
But let it not be said that Arturia Pendragon, former King of the Britons, former King of Knights, former Servant Saber of the Holy Grail War, and now Dovahkiin of Tamriel did not help people in need. Though at times it would come back to bite her.
And this was most certainly one of them.
It had seemed like simple task (relatively speaking compared to the other tasks she had taken upon since landing in Skyrim). Find the man’s ‘master’ in the Pelagius Wing of Solitude’s Blue Palace. The fact that he had given her a hip-bone to apparently use to ‘find’ said master should really have given her the hint to just walk away.
But she didn’t. And after not five minutes of wandering around the seemingly abandoned and decrepit rooms, she was suddenly hit by some strange magecraft that gave her the feeling of blacking out.
If there was one thing that she could use to describe the feeling that accompanied her finally coming to her senses, it was that it reminded her of awakening from a long and vivid dream.
She had no idea how important that would be later.
So here she was, standing in what was clearly not the Blue Palace, nor Solitude, nor anywhere else she had been in Skyrim. It was a small clearing amongst a forest of trees and very large rocks. The sky was a reddish hue. Or at least the clouds were, and the sky was thick with them.
As she got to her feet, Arturia realized a few other things as well. Namely that all of her weapons, armor and other possessions were gone. Completely. Even the several very large rings worth of keys were nowhere to be found. Thankfully whatever force had pulled her here had been considerate enough to replace them with some clothes. They seemed to be clothes for some formal event, briefly reminding her of the clothes that Delphine had given her when she was infiltrating the Thalmoor embassy.
Looking around, she finally noticed the one notable feature in this clearing. What appeared to be a banquet table fill with food, and two men sitting across from each other at it. They looked to be in some kind of discussion.
Or rather, as she approached, it looked like one of them was running his mouth about something and the other desperately wanted to be somewhere else.
“…So then this Mannimarco guy is like ‘I have you trapped in this spike cage and I will eat your soul cause I’m a Necromancer and we Necromancers like eating souls! And then I’m going to eat the Archmage’s soul! And then all the souls in the world!’ And then I was like ‘Arrow to the face!’ Cause I shot him in the face. Funny how he just stood there talking while I was notching an arrow and aiming at his head. Course he started regenerating from that, so I just slipped through the massive gaps in the spike trap. Then I was like ‘Umbra to the face!’ And then I told him ‘Hey you know what, I already have the Archmages soul! And now I’m going to take your soul and put it in this awesome soul gem I got from Azura! Now you two can be ‘Soul mates’ Ha ha! And then I used Travin’s soul to recharge Umbra, and used Mani’s soul to make a magic ring that let me carry 20 more pounds of crap. Good times.”
“Yes I know.” The other man drawled, “You already told me this story.”
“Really now?” the first, silver-haired, man cocked his head to the side in curiosity, “Well, did I tell you the
one about stealing the Elder Scroll?”
“Yes.”
“How about the one where I saved the world from Daedra?”
“Yes.”
“How about the one where I saved the world from underground mole gods?”
“Yes.”
“How about the one where I saved the Dark Brotherhood from a crazy guy who worshipped his mother’s severed head?”
The second man’s eye suddenly widened. “Mommy?” He seemed to have become very pale.
“Whoopsie!” the first man seemed to realize he had said something wrong, “Uh… your mother was very nice, she loved you very much, and uh… she made cookies for you every day! Feel better?”
“MOMMY!”
Apparently not, because the man suddenly screamed and vanished in a swirl of energy.
“Well… crapbuscuits.”
After that… interesting display, Arturia decided to make her presence known.
“Excuse me… sir.” She approached the table.
“Hm?” the man glanced to her. “Hey! You’re not the Dancing Plasma Atronach carrying a Chocolate
Spriggan that I ordered! I am going to have a word with the manager about this! And by ‘word’ I mean ‘giant lizard-rat that is on fire’. And by ‘with’ I mean ‘rip apart with nasty pointy teeth that are also on fire’. Also I should probably hire a manager too. I wonder where I can do that…” at this point he seemed to have totally forgotten that she was there. “Oh hi there! How’d you get in here?” Make that a definitive.
“You didn’t use the back door did you?”
“Um, no,” Arturia started, still trying to get a grasp on what was going on, “A man in Solitude gave me this… hip bone, and I went to-”
“Oh right! The magic hip-bone of Narcolepsy. You know I thought it was the sternum that worked in the Blue Palace…”
“Excuse me,” Arturia was starting to become a little annoyed at the man’s ramblings. “But where exactly are we?”
“Hm… where are we indeed. You know where we’re not? The rolling fields of Rolling Fields! Where the Mammoth-hamsters run wild and stampede all day long, trampling down the un-savory types of society. Usually mimes.”
Arturia looked on, becoming increasingly annoyed at the silver-haired man's ramblings. "Enough with the games! Who are you, and where are we?"
"Well haven't you figured it out yet?" the man gave her a glance as he threw up his hands. "I'm Sheogorath! Ruler of the Shivering Isles, and Daedric Lord of Madness! And coaster-flipping!”
Arturia began to take a step back. She had heard much of these Daedric Lords, and to meet one in person... and one who was apparently completely insane (the bit about the hamsters was a good indicator)...
"And we just happen to be..." the man paused as he turned towards her, looking at her for the first time. His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head, as if he were examining her. "Wait… Are you..." he stroaked his chin as if deep in thought, then took a step closer, like he was trying to get a closer look at her. "Could you be..."
Arturia for her part was becoming very uneasy. While it didn't seem that she had earned his ire, she was certain that she didn't want any kind of interest from a Demon Lord, and certainly not one called the 'Lord of Madness'.
"Wait!" the man suddenly stopped his inspection. It seemed like he had just had an idea. This unnverved her even more. The man quickly reached into his jacket and before Arturia could even react to the possible threat, and withdrawn something that looked decidedly nonthreatening. A piece of worn cloth. It looked almost like a mask of some kind.
The man quickly pulled it over his head. "Okay. Do I look any different to you?" Strangely, the man seemed quite focused, quite unlike the spastic behavior she had seen earlier. As for what he had just put on, it was a cowl of some kind, one that covered most of the head and face. The only odd thing she could see was the glowing runes going up it's center.
"You... put that cowl on?" she tried. This was quite strange.
"But I'm still me right? Not anyone different? Not someone thief and/or fox related?"
"No..." she was beginning to see why he might be called a 'Mad God'.
Behind the mask, she could see the man's eyes suddenly light up.
"It's true!! You're another one!!" he cheered as he pulled the cowl off and started to dance around, leaving Arturia thoroughly confused. "Oh sweet Celestia it's been so long!"
"I'm sorry, who am I?" Arturia asked, weary of what she might be getting into. Did he know previous Dragonborn? And who was 'Celestia'?
"A Player Character! Like I used to be! It's been so long too! Almost two-hundred years." he suddenly waved to her, or more precisely to something over her shoulder. "Hi Player! Are you enjoying the game? Dragons are pretty awesome right? Whole lot cooler then killing Daedra I bet. And there's Werewolves! That's gotta be cool. No Werewolves in Cyrodill."
"Who... are you talking to?" Arturia glanced behind her, seeing nothing.
"Why the Player of course! I never figured out where the point of view is. Is it First-person, or Third? I could never pin that down." Arturia continued to stare at him, quite confused.
"Oh don't worry about it. That Neverine never get's it either. I had to go crazy to figure this out."
Arturia continued to stare, quite convinced that this man was certainly a God of Madness.
“Anyway, sit down! Have a bite to eat!” he gestured to the seat opposite him.
Arturia was still apprehensive about this whole situation. While her sole encounter with a Daedric Lord had actually been far more productive than she would have anticipated (Dawnbreaker was quite the handy weapon), she was still pretty sure that it was the exception, rather than the norm. And this was the proclaimed ‘God of Madness’ so maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea…
It was at this point she finally noticed what was actually on the table. Namely that it was piled high with plates full of food. Very… appetizing looking food. And then there was the smell she just noticed. And she had never gotten breakfast this morning either…
“Dang. Never seen anyone go through a plate of Horker meat like that before.” Sheogorath whistled.
“Shut up and pass the potatoes.”
--
"What do mean I can't leave?!" Arturia nearly yelled.
"Hey, I said WE can't leave. There's a difference. I wouldn't expect an ordianry person like you to be able to get out under normal circumstances." Sheogorath said with a dismissive wave before quickly stopping, "Wait! I take that back. You are a first rate badass and all so you probably would be able to blast your way out of here eventually under normal circumstances. But things aren't normal."
"Okay. So why AREN'T things normal? And how do WE get out of here?" Arturia was desperately trying to get things back on track before the Mad God got on another 20 mile-long digression.
"Right. I'm pretty sure what's going on. Follow me." With that, Sheogorath was walking down one of the trails leading away from the grove. Arturia fell into step beside him.
"So what exactly is going on? And how are we going to get out?"
"Not quite sure yet." the god shrugged. "But I do know that even a first-rate badass wouldn't be able to break out of here on their own. But you're a first-rate badass, and I'm a first-rate badass. So between the two of us, we should be able to figure out a way to Badass our way out of here.”
"Uh-huh..." Arturia was really wishing she had just ignored that crazy man back in Solitude.
"Ah! Here we are." Arturia was broken from her musings to find that they were standing in another grove. This one with a bed in the middle. And in this bed was the prone form of a man that she recognized from before.
"That's Pelagius?"
"Yep. Best I can tell, some part of his bat-shit crazy mess of a subconscious has trapped us here in his dreams. Must be a pretty powerful part considering I'm a freaking god."
"So, all we have to do is wake him up?" Arturia gestured towards the sleeping man. That didn't seem too hard.
"Uh, maybe you didn't get the memo, but he's kind of... dead. And not just the still-warm mostly dead. I mean the ice cold, dirt-ridden, worm-eaten, tomb-raided, you-have-got-his-hip-bone-in-your-pocket kind of dead. So... no. We can't just 'wake him up'."
"So what can we do?"
"Well, normal people's dream are pretty freaky. And dead people's dreams are just plan what-the-fuckery. But they still operate on more or less the same rules."
"And those are?"
"Mostly no rules. But there is one way we can get him to release us. We have to cure his madness!"
Arturia raised an eyebrow. "And how do we do that?" She noticed that the god of madness suddenly had an excited gleam in his eye.
"We have to... implant an idea."
"Implant? What idea?"
"The idea that he isn't insane anymore! We'll have to travel deep within his mind, to the very depths of his unconscious! And it is there that we will find the root of his madness! And it is there that we will cut it out!"
Arturia looked on, remembering once again, that this guy was crazy. But maybe not mad.
"So, Dovakiin." He turned to her. She suddenly realized that he was holding... a briefcase?
"Are you ready to dive... Into the Mind of Madness?"
--
s - “So there you have it folks! The start of ‘Sheogorath’s and Saber’s wacky adventures in The Mind of a
Crazy Emperor!’ Expect more to come!”
S - “And that is why Sheogorath was not allowed to come up with a title.”
s – “Nah, I’m just jealous that you got to be characterized with the capital ‘S’ in these things.”
S – “Yes, you would do that.”
s – “And now audience, expect all kinds of twists and turns in our merry adventure! In fact, I’ll spoil one right now! The twist is that Pelagius had Mommy issues!”
S – “We established that half-way through this chapter.”
s – “Oh. Well then the twist is that we’re in a dream within a dream!”
S – “That was established in the title.”
s – “Oh. Then the twist is that Pelagius was dead all along!”
S – “That was established before this story was even written.”
s – “Well then… the twist is that Saber is really King Arthur!”
S – “That was established before the story that this story is based off of was even written.”
s – “Eh… the twist is that Saber makes out with her evil alter ego!”
S – “That was est- Wait, what?!”
s – “All this, and more! On ‘Into the Mind, of the Mind, of the Mind, of Madness! Stay tuned!”
--
Please don't hate me.
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Originally Posted by Kyte
