Trixie stretched as the sun entered her new quarters, glad that she had recommended getting a good nights sleep after everything she had her friends had been through. Her friends had been offered some of the spare beds that the College had, meaning that they spent the night with the rest of the apprentices. She was sure that Luna was glad to have someplace to sleep and likely didn't care that it wasn't the royal bedroom that she had back in her home of Canterlot. As she climbed out of her bed she cast a look at the Archmage robes she had been given the previous day, just placed on one of her desks due to being tired.
She sighed for a moment before gently pulling the new robes on, dropping her old robes into the chest that sat at the foot of her new bed and making sure that all her weapons were still there.
Trixie walked down the stairs and passed into the Hall of the Elements, nodding to Tolfdir as he taught the apprentices whatever he had planned for that day. She pulled open the door to the Arcaneum and walked up the stairs until she came to the bookshelves, spotting Serana kneeling before a shelf and browsing the selection. She spotted Luna and Shadow sitting at one of the tables, either talking about the next step in their plan or catching up on the last two to three hundred years. Sombra sat by himself, reading one of the books that he must have found on the table, while Raika sat near Urag, no doubt waiting for Trixie to appear so she could get the information they had worked so hard to acquire.
"There you are Archmage," Urag called to her, beckoning for Trixie to join him, "As per our arrangement you sent out to find information on the Staff of Magnus, but due to the actions of Ancano you were forced to acquire it earlier than Savos and I had planned. Now that you have the Staff I can tell you exactly where I heard the Moth Priest of yours was last seen, though I think he might have moved on by now. I least heard that the Moth Priest was visiting Dragon's Bridge, though I never found out why."
"Great," Raika moaned, shaking her head in annoyance, "now I get to be harassed by the Imperial Legion while trying to figure out where our Moth Priest wandered off to. Maybe I could hide my identity for a while by wearing one of the spare robes that I've acquired from all those mages that tried to kill me back when i started my quest."
"You've kept some of those robes?" Sombra asked, curious as to why she would have done that, "May I see one of them?"
Raika sighed and opened her bag of spare clothes, pushing several of them to the side as she searched for one of the robes she had taken from a fallen mage. After a minute of searching she found one of them, pulling out the blue silk robe and making sure that there weren't any holes in the fabric. Once she was sure that the robe was just fine she handed it to Sombra, who turned it over and seemed to study what the robes had been constructed with. A moment passed before his horn lit up, pressing some type of magic into the fabric before letting his horn die back down and passing it back to Raika.
"What did you do to it?" Raika asked, turning the robe over while looking for anything that was out of the ordinary.
"An illusion enchantment," Sombra answered, getting onto his feet, "it will make you look completely different to anyone who has absolutely no knowledge of magic. The spell will last for about half an hour, so we had best get underway and find where this Moth Priest disappeared to."
As he spoke a Shadow Gate opened in the area in front of him, though Raika suspected that it lead right to Dragon's Bridge and wished she knew how he knew exactly everything was located these days. Luna and Shadow strolled into the gateway the moment that Sombra nodded that it was ready, disappearing before Trixie and Serana followed after them. Only Raika and Sombra remained, so she quickly switched out her armor with the robe, feeling some strange magic washing over her for a moment. Before she had a moment to wonder what the magic had done she ran through the gateway and disappeared, leaving Sombra to stroll in after her and slam the gate shut.
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Raika stumbled out of the gateway and came face to face with the town of Dragon's Bridge, whose citizens basically ignored them and continued on with their day. Luna and Shadow seemed to be talking to one of the guards, waving their hands and making some gestures as they tried to get some information out of him. Serana and Trixie seemed to keep an eye out for the Imperials that had tried to stop them the last time they were near Solitude, but it seemed like almost all the guards were out on patrol. Sombra helped her onto her feet, which she found were no longer her normal paws and had been replaced with what she assumed was the nord's feet.
"What did you do to me?" Raika asked, finding that her voice had changed as well.
"An illusion," Sombra whispered into her ear, "you'll be a simple nord for the next half hour, or as long as the robe stays on. The Imperial Soldiers won't realize that its you until its too late to stop us, but it seems that my plan might have been wasted."
"Okay, I think I understand where the Moth Priest went," Luna said, walking to the group with Shadow close behind, "He and his guards came through the town a few days ago and headed to the east, crossing the bridge and heading in the direction of Whiterun. If anything I think he might have been grabbed by someone who thought they could ransom him and have yet to make their demands. We should follow his tracks and see if his carriage was thrown off the side of the road or pushed into the river before we start searching for clues."
"Then let's get underway," Trixie replied, the Staff of Magnus appearing in her hand, "I'd hate to have anything bad happen to him."
Raika knew they needed the Moth Priest to safely read the Elder Scroll that Serana carried, but it annoyed her that he seemed to continue to slip away from them. Isran had given them a bad rumor and sent them to Forelhost, then they had to trek through a dwarven ruin, and then save the College before they learned where the Moth Priest had visited. Only, now that they were standing in the town he had come to, the man was no where to be seen and all the guards could tell them was that he was on his way to Whiterun. Luna, however, seemed concerned that he might have been attacked on the way and was determined to walk all the way from Dragon's Bridge to Whiterun to make sure he was safe.
They left Dragon's Bridge and followed the path that the carriage was said to have traveled, but not more than five minutes outside of the town Raika caught the sight of a upside down carriage. It was further up the road from where they were standing, but left on the side of the road as if whoever attacked it really didn't care that someone would come across it. Before they got any closer Raika held her hand out and stopped them in their tracks, watching someone, wearing a cloak and carrying a bow, appear by the wreckage and check something on the ground. Then the person placed a piece of paper on what Raika assumed was a dead body and turned to the nearby fork in the road, running across the stone bridge before heading for a hole in the mountain side.
"Okay, who was that?" Raika asked, walking up to the wreckage and finding a scene of a battle, "Oh wow...these guys sure put up a fight against these vampires."
"Hmm," Luna said, picking up the piece of paper and reading it, "from the looks of it the vampires caught the Moth Priest and took him to a nearby cave, to await orders from someone whose higher up than they are. My guess is that whoever our friend is had heard about the Moth Priest and wanted to help him out on his trip, so now they're going to save him before offering him their services."
"Before we go anywhere I need to get my armor," Raika said, ducking behind one of the nearby rocks and pulling the mages' robe off.
Sombra, remaining silent the entire time his friends searched the wreckage, stared at where the person disappeared and wondered who the mysterious person actually was. The person had moved with enough grace that reminded him of how graceful that both Celestia and Luna had moved when they were fighting. If the person was another Equestrian it made him wonder exactly who it was, despite the fact that his knowledge was limited to who he had seen in the past and who had bested him when he had returned.
Raika stepped out in her armor, glad to be out of those magical robes and back in her original body, and stared at the cave that the person had disappeared into. They had another ally that could help them, but Raika was beginning to think that if she took on any more people there wouldn't be any room for her to kill anything. It was also possible that whoever the person was they were simply stopping by and helping a stranger in need, but Raika didn't put it past them to be wanting a reward after rescuing the Moth Priest.
Without wasting a second Raika moved across the stone bridge and closed in on the cave, worried that the Moth Priest might disappear before they could get his help. Her friends followed behind her, each of them placing their hands on their weapons in case they entered the cave and found a host of vampires waiting for them. She wouldn't put it past the vampires to have faked the whole wreckage in order to lure people to their doom, waiting to ambush whoever crossed into their lair. For all she knew the person they all saw was just a decoy, someone whose role was to lure unsuspecting travelers deeper into the cave where the vampires were waiting.
When they reached the cave Raika slowed to a crawl and quietly entered the cave, keeping an eye out for the stranger and any vampires that might be lurking around the corners. They rounded a corner and noticed that there was a large ruin hiding in the side of the mountain, but where Raika thought she didn't see anything dangerous at first she noticed several figures moving across one of the ruined walls. At first there were five people walking across the walls, but then one of them fell to the ground and the other for went on like they hadn't noticed. Then, just like a bolt of lightning, Raika heard the release of a bow and watched the other vampires drop off the wall, though she had to wonder what was killing them.
Luna tapped her on the shoulder and pointed down near the wall where the vampires had fallen, pointing out the hooded figure that they had seen earlier. A stone gargoyle emerged from the ruins and started patrolling the area around the opening, but the person pulled out a pair of arrows and put them right in its chest, causing it to fall into the water. The person silently moved into the ruin and Raika heard the bow twice more, no doubt putting two more vampires out of their misery. For a moment she waited for the sound of the bow, but then when nothing happened Raika got up and moved towards the entrance of the ruins.
They eventually came to the upper area of the ruin, where they found an old man in a white robe talking with the hooded stranger, almost as if he was thanking someone for a timely rescue.
"Umm...what did I miss?" Raika asked, not sure what had happened.
"Oh, you must be the Dragonborn," the old man said, noticing that company had arrived, "your friend here told me that your seeking a Moth Priest that can translate one of the ancient Elder Scrolls. I am aware of the threat that all of Tamriel faces with these vampires, present company excluded, should their prophecy be fulfilled. I shall come with you to Fort Dawnguard and read the Elder Scroll."
"My...friend?" Raika asked, facing the stranger for a moment, "Ugh...I'll deal with you later. Sombra, open a Shadow Gate to Fort Dawnguard for us please."
Sombra stepped towards the wall and extended his hand towards it, gathering the shadows together against the wall and opening another of his gateways. The stranger stared at the gate as Raika and Serana passed through it, appearing to take some interest in the magic and watching the effects. Trixie and Shadow approached the gate and silently entered the mass of shadows, disappearing in a flash of an eye and leaving the three of them alone. The Moth Priest smiled and entered the gate without pause, following the others to wherever the portal led him. The stranger cast a look at Sombra for a moment, as if making sure he could be trusted, before following the others into the swirling mass of shadows, Sombra following just a moment later.
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Raika walked out of the shadows and found herself back near the entrance to Fort Dawnguard, exactly where they had used the gate a day or two ago. Her friends stood by her side, though the Moth Priest and the stranger were the first ones to move towards the wooden doors as Sombra closed the gate. The soldiers of the Dawnguard stared at them as they passed, whispering amongst themselves and pointing at Serana, as if she was a bad omen. Raika noticed that they didn't do that to Shadow, but he was a special case, seeing how he was the Divine Crusader and everyone else respected him.
"Well, I was wondering when you'd return," Isran said, turning to face them as they entered the great chamber, "I had heard that there were problems with the College of Winterhold and that you had been sighted there. Mind explaining..."
"The Thalmor wanted to destroy Winterhold and Windhelm," Raika spat, "They took control of a magical artifact that the mages had discovered, killed their previous Archmage, and were ready to reduce everything to ashes. We stepped in and stopped the destruction from happening, so cut me some slack. Your latest recruit helped us find the Moth Priest, though she had taken care of the vampires guarding him before we even got there."
"May I conduct the reading?" the Moth Priest asked, somehow having taken the Scroll from Serana.
"Yes please," Isran said, as if it were something that he had been waiting for for a very long time.
"I see a vision before me, an image of a great bow." the Moth Priest said, unfurling the Elder Scroll and staring into the fabric, "I know this weapon! It is Auriel's Bow! Now a voice whispers, saying "Among the night's children, a dread lord will rise. In an age of strife, when dragons return to the realm of men, darkness will mingle with light and the night and day will be as one. The voice fades and the words begin to shimmer and distort. But wait, there is more here. The secret of the bow's power is written elsewhere. I think there is more to the prophecy, recorded in other scrolls. Yes, I see them now... One contains the ancient secrets of the dragons, and the other speaks of the potency of ancient blood. My vision darkens, and I see no more. To know the complete prophecy, we must have the other two scrolls."
"Blast it," Isran exclaimed, pounding a fist against one of the fort's walls, "We're no closer to saving Skyrim than when we started."
"Nonsense," Raika said, dreading what she was about to say, "This Scroll mentions two other Elder Scrolls, one for the Dragons and one for the Vampires. I've already recovered the Elder Scroll that tells of the dragons secrets, so all we need to do is find the other one."
Isran waved her away, like he didn't care what she and her friends did, and left them alone to do whatever they wanted like he had given up on the Elder Scrolls. Raika, seeing how they didn't have anything important to deal with at that moment, turned to the stranger, who was standing near a wall and still had their hood up.
"So," Raika said, turning to the stranger, "mind removing that hood and showing us who you really are?"
The stranger pulled back their hood and revealed a young women who looked like she was barely past her twentieth year, whose hair was split between a violet, a rose, and a golden color. Raika assumed that the hood had been enchanted, because the moment it came off a long pink horn appeared on her forehead and a pair of wings appeared on her back. Raika knew exactly what she was, seeing how she had traveled with Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and, she was assuming on the last one, Princess Twilight Sparkle. She assumed that this was the fourth alicorn that the sisters had mentioned, but the name escaped her.
"Princess Mi Amore Cadenza," the young girl said, pulling out a sealed scroll baring the symbol of the sun, "or Cadence as most ponies call me these days. Princess Celestia asked me to travel to this strange world, find someone called Raika, and then, if her suspicions were right, present this letter to her sister. Princess Luna, this is for you."
Luna gently took the letter and broke the seal, unfurling it so she could read whatever her sister wanted to tell her. Raika had the feeling that she had ditched the nobles in Canterlot to come back to Skyrim and fight some more of the villains that Raika was hunting down. After a moment Luna rolled the scroll back up, stashed it in her pack, and moaned before she stared right at Raika.
"I'm being forced to return to Equestria for some time," Luna said, her horn igniting as a hole appeared before her, "My sister is annoyed that I left her swamped in both paperwork and the annoying nobles, so she's forcing Cadence to replace me. I'll return when I am able, which won't be for some time."
Before Raika could speak Luna disappeared, returning to her native world and leaving Raika to wonder what the last Equestrian Princess could contribute to the cause. She cast a look over at Cadence, who simply shrugged in response. Raika sighed and silently wondered where they were going to find the last Elder Scroll.