The mages inside the fort are not much different. They've been alerted that something weird is going on, but Ruby was quick enough that they haven't managed to mount up a good enough defence. In the end, there is one mage that is a proper challenge, a wizard who despite also not having anything that looks like "tactics" can make really fucking big explosions. Ruby is not specced to survive those, so he has to dodge a lot, keep moving, heal all the time, and draw the fire while his Flame Atronach hurts the mage.

In the end, what decides the battle is the fact that Ruby has more magicka capacity than that mage, which is a much closer thing than it should be, though Ruby was always making sure that if he ran low enough he had a plan to escape. It didn't get to that, but he wants to think he could've dealt, if it had.

Now he throws up.

That's not enough. He's still feeling nauseous, and he's feeling like the walls are closing in on him, or watching him and, and judging him.

He's judging him.

Gods, what has he done?

He needs air. He needs air, he needs air that isn't stale and wet and doesn't smell like blood and charred flesh. He hates the smell of charred flesh. He already hated it from his encounter with Yisra's corpse but now he hates it even more, the way it's sweet and almost tasty, if you forget what it is. Ruby thinks he'll never, ever be able to forget what it is. It's revolting, and nauseating, and he needs air, so he has to run up the stairs and get out of this damned place before he passes out.

It does help, some, except for the part where the scene of his massacre is waiting for him there, too. Even if the smell isn't as strong, it's still present, with no wind to blow it away, and the sight of the dead bodies under the sun is so much worse than when they were hidden away in the dark, dank recesses of those abandoned halls.

Dear gods, what has he done?

It takes him a while to be able to come back in. Every time he thinks about it his stomach turns again and he turns around and leans against a tree and breathes some more. He keeps trying to rehearse the reasons he had for it in his mind but it all feels like not, really, enough.

It was horrible. He feels like a monster. He feels like he made choices he'll never be able to undo, the consequences of which were felt only by people who did not and could not consent to them—and he has. He feels that because it's true, it's true and it makes him hate himself. And he wishes it were easier, a big part of him wishes it were easier, if this were a book this is the part where the narration would say "it's so so easy to rationalise it and feel like he was justified but he had to hold onto the understanding that what he did was awful" but actually that's not what he's feeling at all, that's the opposite of what he's feeling. He can't get over the knowledge that what he did was awful, he can't convince himself that he was justified, even if he thinks he was.

Those people were broken. They were broken. There was almost nothing left of them, they didn't even beg for their lives, didn't flinch at the pain. They didn't seem to even care for each other, when their allies fell they acted like it was inconvenient and annoying or like they'd just acquired another source for an undead minion and not at all like they had just lot a comrade, someone they lived with. But that, itself, makes it feel worse. It makes it feel like they weren't, really, choosing to attack him. They weren't, really, deciding to try to kill Ruby. They were like children, not knowing right from wrong, not understanding the consequences of their actions or the gravity of their situation. It felt like killing children.

He might eventually get used to it, if he makes a habit of clearing forts of mages, but he's not looking forward to it. He might eventually get used to it but right now, he's not, and it takes him a while to be able to come back in, it takes him a while before he can actually will his feet to move.

Gods, what has he done...

But now he needs to do what he came here to do, doesn't he? Why did he want to, uh, "get married" here, exactly? The thought feels impossible, in this slaughterhouse, and he's more certain than ever that he was under some kind of enchantment. Anyway, he should explore, and understand.

He hadn't formed a mental image of what to expect a fort held by insane mages to look like, but everything he's seeing here is unsurprising. Everything is in a state of disrepair, no one's gone through the trouble of cleaning anything anywhere (okay that's not strictly true but the place still definitely needs a scrubbing), the dungeons have the skeletons of any prisoners unlucky enough to have been forgotten by the mages and the piles of dust of all the undead who got destroyed when Ruby killed their masters. There are enchanters and cauldrons and alembics all over everywhere, and bunches of books on a myriad topics.

The College library probably already has copies of all of these books, but out of general principle and to prevent others from coming here and resuming the "work" of the people he just killed he'll try to collect as many as he can carry into his pouches.

It's while doing that that he finds it: a surreptitious flicker of magic in a corner, out of the way and almost invisible, which expands and becomes something Ruby has never seen upon examination. It looks... like a portal.

Well, he'll continue exploring the place before he steps into the unknown because he has no idea what's gonna happen, but at this point it's pure curiosity that drives him to do it.

There's a feeling of timelessness, of weightlessness, of not existing for a non-stretch of untime...

...and then he's in a grove.

There is no sun, and there are no stars. The light comes from everywhere, and coupled with the misty air it lends the grove a mystical, ethereal quality. There is a path ahead of Ruby, delineated by unevently-spaced lanterns hanging from trees or attached to wooden posts, between some trees and over and past a babbling brook, going well into the grove beyond where the mist allows him to see.

Something tells Ruby he's not in Mundus anymore.

Well, what's he gonna do about it, not follow the path? Be reasonable.

It's not a very long walk before he starts hearing the sound of conversation, a faint murmur suggesting a small crowd milling together and chatting cheerfully. He supposes that if this is where he said he planned to marry the hagraven he can see how Ysolda would've been interested. He can't bring himself to feel afraid, even though he thinks he should, because it's too... pretty. And peaceful. It doesn't feel like the sort of place where anything bad can happen to you. Being here, he can feel his worries and awful feelings melt off his skin like snowflakes.

Eventually he turns around a corner and finds the party: about three dozen people around a feast table, variously sitting or standing, chatting to each other or just drinking contentedly, and—in the case of one couple and one group of four people—fucking.

And next to a wall, lying on a long flat slab of stone covered by a blanket, being fed grapes by a man and having her feet massaged by two women, totally nude, is Sam Guevenne. She's the first to notice Ruby's arrival and she grins enormously. "Oh, our guest of honour is finally here!" she calls, and then everyone else turns to look at him and cheer.

...man, what the fuck.

"Hey, Sam," he says, walking up to her.

"Hey yourself! I was starting to think you wouldn't make it." She is notably a lot more sober, today.

"Where—are we?"

"Oh, this is one of my myriad realms of revelry, the Misty Grove. It's beautiful, isn't it? Such a shame your engagement fell through, it would've been a beautiful wedding."

"Your myriad realms of revelry."

"Indeed. Because I..."

And then she changes. Her skin shifts to a pure black with markings in deep blood red, her ears extend into elflike points, her hands grow long sharp nails and her feet extend into digitigrade form, and two pairs of small horns grow from the top of her head.

"...am Sanguine," she says, voice notably deepening and adopting a strange, unearthly echo.

"O...kay? Nice to meet you?"

"...do you not know who I am?"

"Should I?"

"Oh, you've ruined it! It was such a dramatic change, too!" She pulls away from the three people attending to her and pushes herself up to her feet, and in this form she's a good eight feet tall. "I am Sanguine, Lord of Revelry and Blood-made Pleasure, Prince of Hedonism, Daedra Lord of Debauchery, and the patron of hard partying." Pause. "No? Not ringing any bells?"

He shrugs apologetically. "Sorry."

But also: holy fucking shit it's a Daedric Prince that's like literally a fucking god what the fuck. Now he's starting to get scared; this person could squish him like a bug with barely a thought, in her realm like this.