优先遵循ANK汉化
狼心女王，卷八
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2022-09-18更新
最新编辑:Lu_23333
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更新日期：2022-09-18
最新编辑：Lu_23333
狼心女王，卷八
狼心女王，卷八
出自于第二世纪的圣者英佐里卡斯之笔：
第三纪元127年：
在伊驰达格战役结束之后，皇帝尤瑞尔·塞普汀三世被擒，并且在他被押送到他位于落锤省基兰恩的叔叔那里之前，他就被一个愤怒的暴徒杀害了。他叔叔塞弗勒斯随后正式称帝并移驾帝都。之前效忠皇帝尤瑞尔以及他母亲，狼心女王波特玛的军队都纷纷转投到新皇帝的麾下。作为手下部队归降的报答，皇帝给予了天际，高岩，落锤，夏暮岛，威木省，黑沼泽以及晨风这些地区的贵族更高的自治和独立权。
波特玛还在负隅顽抗，然而她的领地逐渐缩小至只有独孤城还在她的掌控之中。她召唤出了魔族来助她一臂之力，指示亡灵法师把死亡后的敌人复活成亡灵士兵随后就进攻了她的两位兄长——皇帝塞弗勒斯·塞普汀一世和里尔莫斯的玛格努斯王的部队。她的盟友随着她越来越疯狂而渐渐离开了她，她现在仅有的陪伴就是她日积月累而产生的僵尸和骷髅兵了。独孤城成为了一片死地。古老的狼心女王的故事在腐化的骷髅女侍与吓坏他目标的吸血鬼将军手中的战争计划中一直静静地等待着继续书写下去。
第三纪元137年：
玛格努斯打开了他房间里的一扇小窗，这是他几周来第一次，听到这城市的声音：车子的吱吱声，马蹄踩过鹅卵石的声音以及某处小孩嬉笑声。他笑着回到他的床边洗漱穿戴好。这时传来了与众不同的敲门声。
“进来吧，佩尔”，他说道。
佩拉吉奥斯跳进了房间。很显然他已经醒了好几个小时了。玛格努斯对他充沛耐力感到非常惊奇，并猜想如果是20岁的小伙子来作战的话可以支援多久。
“你看过外面了吗？”佩拉吉奥斯问道。“所有乡民都回来了！有商店了，还有一座法师公会，并且在以下海港那里，我看见了成百上千家商铺，他们到处都是！”
“他们不用再害怕了。我们已经搞定所有之前做他们邻居的僵尸和幽灵，并且他们知道现在回来很安全了”
“塞弗勒斯死的时候会变成僵尸吗？”佩拉吉奥斯问道。
“我不会让那种事发生的”玛格努斯笑道。“你为什么这么问？”
“我听到有人说他已经老了而且生了病”佩拉吉奥斯说道。
“他还没那么老”玛格努斯说道。“他才60岁。就比我大两岁而已”
“那么波特玛姑姑多少岁了？”佩拉吉奥斯问道。
“七十”玛格努斯说道。“并且没错，那就有点老了。你有什么问题过会再问吧。我现在要去和指挥官见面了，但是我们晚饭的时候还能继续聊。给自己找点事情做，但是别找麻烦好吗？”
“好的，先生”佩拉吉奥斯说道。他知道他的父亲必须继续围困波特玛的城堡。在他们占领城堡并将波特玛关押之后，他们就会搬出旅店移居城堡。佩拉吉奥斯并不期待那种事情。整个镇子散发着怪异又甜蜜的气息，但是他完全无法在恶臭中不呕吐的情况下靠近城堡的护城河。他们可以在那种地方扔上上百万朵花，但结果应该没什么两样。
他花了好几个小时逛了一下小镇，买了一些食物还给他住在里尔莫斯的母亲和姐姐买了一些丝带。他思索着还要为谁买些礼物而放慢了脚步。他所有的堂表兄妹，塞弗勒斯，安提奥楚斯伯伯和波特玛姑姑的孩子都在战争中死掉了，有些是战死的，有些因为庄稼被烧光而饿死的。碧昂姬婶婶去年也去世了。现在就剩下他，他母亲，他姐姐，他父亲和他的皇帝伯伯还活着了。当然波特玛姑姑也活着，不过，她也不能真的算在里面。
当他在那天清晨路过法师公会的时候，他决定不走进去了。这些地方总是用他们古怪的烟雾，水晶还有旧书本来吓唬他。不过这次，佩拉吉奥斯想买个礼物送给他的叔叔塞弗勒斯。一件来自独孤城法师公会的纪念品。
一位老妇人打不开她家的前门，佩拉吉奥斯上前帮她打开了。
“谢谢你”她说道。
她很显然是佩拉吉奥斯所见过的最老的东西了。她的脸看起来像一个老的有点腐烂的苹果盖着一头乱乱的白花花的头发。他下意识地躲开了正准备抚摸他头的那双枯老的手。然而她脖子上的那颗宝石瞬间迷住了他。那是一颗亮黄色的宝石，但是它总是看起来好像有什么东西被困在其中。当烛光照耀它的时候，它显现出了一个正在来回走动的四脚野兽的形状。
“这是灵魂石”她说道。“灌入了一种强大的恶魔狼人的灵魂后，它在很久远之前就被附上了让人为之着迷的魔法，但我在想能不能给它赋予另一种咒语。可能就像来自变换系法术学校的一些东西一样比如说锁或者盾”她停止了说话转而用她那黄色的潮湿的眼睛仔细地打量着眼前的男孩。“你看起来很眼熟，小男孩。你叫什么名字？”
“佩拉吉奥斯”他说道。他平时会说“佩拉吉奥斯王子”但是他被告知不能在小镇里暴露身份所以没有加上王子二字。
“我以前也认识一个叫佩拉吉奥斯的人”老夫人说道，接着慢慢地微笑着说：“你一个人来这里的吗，佩拉吉奥斯？”
“我父亲是…军队里的，正在进攻城堡。但他在城墙被攻破后就会回来的”
“那我敢说这花不了多久了”老妇人叹道。“没有事物，不论建造得有多坚固，都无法长存。你是想来法师公会买东西的吗？”
“我想给我叔叔买个礼物”佩拉吉奥斯说道。“但我不知道我是不是带够钱了”
老妇人留小男孩自己看着商品，自己却一个人走向了公会的巫士那里。他是一个年轻的诺德人，有抱负而且对独孤城并不熟悉。在大把金币的收买下，他几乎没有被劝说就主动地把宝石上的迷惑魔法移除，转而给宝石附上了一种强大的诅咒，一种慢性的毒素可以让佩戴者年复一年逐渐丧失理智。她还买了一枚很便宜的火抗戒指。
“因为你对待我这老太婆很有礼貌，我将赠与你这些礼物”她说着把项链和戒指交给了小男孩。“你可以把戒指送给你叔叔，告诉他这枚戒指被赋予了一种漂浮咒语，所以如果他从高空坠落的话，这枚戒指可以保护他。这灵魂石是送给你的”
“谢谢你”男孩说道。
“但是这也太慷慨了啊”
“这和慷慨无关”她颇为诚实地回答道。“你看，我现在我曾去过帝国宫殿的记录大殿一两次，而且我在上古卷轴的预言中读到过你。你有一天会成为皇帝的，我的孩子，皇帝佩拉吉奥斯·塞普汀三世，并且在这灵魂石的指引下，子孙后代将会永远记住你与你的信条。
说完这些话，老妇人在法师公会后面的一条小巷深处消失了。佩拉吉奥斯找了她一会，但是他没想到去搜索一下那一堆石头的背面。如果他真的搜索了的话，他就会发现一条联通这个小镇与独孤城的城堡心脏地带的一条通道。如果他往里走的话，他会发现，在穿越过蹒跚行走的僵尸群之后伫立着一座宏伟的宫殿，波特玛皇后的寝宫。
在那寝宫里，他会发现独孤城的狼心女王宁静地听着她城堡被攻破。并且他会看见在她脸上露出了诡异的笑容的同时咽下了最后一口气。
出自于第二世纪的圣者英佐里卡斯之笔：
第三纪元137年：
波特玛·塞普汀在她的城堡被围困了一个月之后去世。她生前做过独孤城的狼心女王，皇帝佩拉吉奥斯二世的女儿，国王曼提亚科的妻子，皇后金泰拉二世的姑姑，皇帝尤瑞尔三世的母亲以及安提奥楚斯塞弗勒斯两位皇帝的姐妹。在她死后，玛格努斯委任他的儿子，佩拉吉奥斯作为独孤城的名誉城主，并由皇家议会协助管理。
第三纪元140年：
皇帝塞弗勒斯·塞普汀从马背上摔了下来医治无效而去世。他的兄弟随后称帝成为皇帝玛格努斯·塞普汀。
第三纪元141年：
独孤城的城主佩拉吉奥斯，在帝国年度报表中被记上了“偶尔有点古怪的”一句附言。他随后娶了瓦登费尔的公爵夫人卡塔瑞亚。
第三纪元145年：
皇帝玛格努斯·塞普汀去世。他的儿子，也就是随后被称为佩拉吉奥斯疯子的那个人，加冕继位。
The Wolf Queen, v8
The Wolf Queen, Book Eight
From the pen of Inzolicus, Second Century Sage:
3E 127:
Following the Battle of Ichidag, the Emperor Uriel Septim III was captured and, before he was able to be brought to his uncle's castle in the Hammerfell kingdom of Gilane, he met his death at the hands of an angry mob. This uncle, Cephorus, was thereafter proclaimed emperor and rode to the Imperial City. The troops formerly loyal to Emperor Uriel and his mother, the Wolf Queen Potema, pledged themselves to the new Emperor. In return for their support, the nobility of Skyrim, High Rock, Hammerfell, the Summerset Isle, Valenwood, Black Marsh, and Morrowind demanded and received a new level of autonomy and independence from the Empire. The War of the Red Diamond was at an end.
Potema continued to fight a losing battle, her area of influence dwindling and dwindling until only her kingdom of Solitude remained in her power. She summoned daedra to fight for her, had her necromancers resurrect her fallen enemies as undead warriors, and mounted attack after attack on the forces of her brothers, the Emperor Cephorus Septim I and King Magnus of Lilmoth. Her allies began leaving her as her madness grew, and her only companions were the zombies and skeletons she had amassed over the years. The kingdom of Solitude became a land of death. Stories of the ancient Wolf Queen being waited on by rotting skeletal chambermaids and holding war plans with vampiric generals terrified her subjects.
3E 137:
Magnus opened up the small window in his room. For the first time in weeks, he heard the sounds of a city: carts squeaking, horses clopping over the cobblestones, and somewhere a child laughing. He smiled as he returned to his bedside to wash his face and finish dressing. There was a distinctive knock on the door.
"Come in, Pel," he said.
Pelagius bounded into the room. It was obvious that he had been up for hours. Magnus marveled at his energy, and wondered how much longer battles would last if they were run by twelve-year-old boys.
"Did you see outside yet?" Pelagius asked. "All the townspeople have come back! There are shops, and a Mages Guild, and down by the harbor, I saw a hundred shops come in from all over the place!"
"They don't have to be afraid anymore. We've taken care of all the zombies and ghosts that used to be their neighbors, and they know it's safe to come back."
"Is Uncle Cephorus going to turn into a zombie when he dies?" asked Pelagius.
"I wouldn't put that past him," laughed Magnus. "Why do you ask?"
"I heard some people saying that he was old and sick," said Pelagius.
"He's not that old," said Magnus. "He's sixty years old. That's just two years older than I."
"And how old is Aunt Potema?" asked Pelagius.
"Seventy," said Magnus. "And yes, that is old. Any more questions will have to wait. I have to go meet with the commander now, but we can talk at supper. You can make yourself busy, and not get into any trouble?"
"Yes, sir," said Pelagius. He understood that his father had to continue to hold siege on aunt Potema's castle. After they took it over and locked her up, they would move out of the inn and into the castle. Pelagius was not looking forward to that. The whole town had a funny, sweet, dead smell, but he could not get even as close as the castle moat without gagging from the stench. They could dump a million flowers on the place and it wouldn't make any difference at all.
He walked through the city for hours, buying some food and then some ribbons for his sister and mother back in Lilmoth. He thought about who else he needed to buy gifts for and was stumped. All his cousins, the children of Uncle Cephorus, Uncle Antiochus, and Aunt Potema, had died during the war, some of them in battle and some of them during the famines because so many crops had been burned. Aunt Bianki had died last year. There was only he, his mother, his sister, his father, and his uncle the Emperor left. And Aunt Potema. But she didn't really count.
When he came upon the Mages Guild earlier that morning, he had decided not to go in. Those places always spooked him with their strange smoke and crystals and old books. This time, it occurred to Pelagius that he might buy a gift for Uncle Cephorus. A souvenir of Solitude's Mages Guild.
An old woman was having trouble with the front door, so Pelagius opened it for her.
"Thank you," she said.
She was easily the oldest thing he had ever seen. Her face looked like an old rotted apple framed with a wild whirl of bright white hair. He instinctively moved away from her gnarled talon when she started to pat him on the head. But there was a gem around her neck that immediately fascinated him. It was a single bright yellow jewel, but it almost looked there was something trapped within. When the light hit it from the candles, it brought out the form of a four-legged beast, pacing.
"It's a soul gem," she said. "Infused with the spirit of a great demon werewolf. It was enchanted long, long ago with the power to charm people, but I've been thinking about giving it another spell. Perhaps something from the School of Alteration like Lock or Shield." She paused and looked at the boy carefully with yellowed, rheumy eyes. "You look familiar to me, boy. What's your name?"
"Pelagius," he said. He normally would have said "Prince Pelagius," but he was told not to draw attention to himself while in town.
"I used to know someone named Pelagius," the old woman said, and slowly smiled. "Are you here alone, Pelagius?"
"My father is... with the army, storming the castle. But he'll be back when the walls have been breached."
"Which I dare say won't take too much longer," sighed the old woman. "Nothing, no matter how well built, tends to last. Are you buying something in the Mages Guild?"
"I wanted to buy a gift for my uncle," said Pelagius. "But I don't know if I have enough gold."
The old woman left the boy to look over the wares while she went to the Guild enchanter. He was a young Nord, ambitious, and new to the kingdom of Solitude. It took little persuasion and a lot of gold to convince him to remove the charm spell from the soul gem and imbue it with a powerful curse, a slow poison that would drain wisdom from its wearer year by year until he or she lost all reason. She also purchased a cheap ring of fire resistance.
"For your kindness to an old woman, I've bought you these," she said, giving the boy the necklace and the ring. "You can give the ring to your uncle, and tell him it has been enchanted with a levitation spell, so if ever he needs to leap from high places, it will protect him. The soulgem is for you."
"Thank you," said the boy. "But this is too kind of you."
"Kindness has nothing to do with it," she answered, quite honestly. "You see, I was in the Hall of Records at the Imperial Palace once or twice, and I read about you in the foretellings of the Elder Scrolls. You will be Emperor one day, my boy, the Emperor Pelagius Septim III, and with this soul gem to guide you, posterity will always remember you and your deeds."
With those words, the old woman disappeared down an alley behind the Mages Guild. Pelagius looked after her, but he did not think to search behind a heap of stones. If he had, he would have found a tunnel under the city into the very heart of Castle Solitude. And if he had found his way there, he would have found, past the shambling undead and the moldering remains of a once grand palace, the bedroom of the queen.
In that bedroom, he would find the Wolf Queen of Solitude in repose, listening to the sounds of her castle collapsing. And he would see a toothless grin growing on her face as she breathed her last.
From the pen of Inzolicus, Second Century Sage:
3E 137:
Potema Septim died after a month long siege on her castle. While she lived, she had been the Wolf Queen of Solitude, Daughter of the Emperor Pelagius II, Wife of King Mantiarco, Aunt of the Empress Kintyra II, Mother of Emperor Uriel III, and Sister of the Emperors Antiochus and Cephorus. At her death, Magnus appointed his son, Pelagius, as the titular head of Solitude, under guidance from the royal council.
3E 140:
The Emperor Cephorus Septim died after falling from his horse. His brother was proclaimed the Emperor Magnus Septim.
3E 141:
Pelagius, King of Solitude, is recorded as "occasionally eccentric" in the Imperial Annals. He marries Katarish, Duchess of Vvardenfell.
3E 145:
The Emperor Magnus Septim dies. His son, who will be known as Pelagius the Mad, is coronated.
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