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Palla
Book II
by Vojne Mierstyyd



Palla. Pal La. The name burned in my heart. I found myself whispering it in my studies even when I tried to concentrate on something the Magister was saying. My lips would silently purse to voice the Pal, and tongue lightly flick to form the La as if I were kissing her spirit before me. It was madness in every way except that I knew that it was madness. I knew I was in love. I knew she was a noble Redguard woman, a fierce warrior more beautiful than the stars. I knew her young daughter Betaniqi had taken possession of a manorhouse near the Guild, and that she liked me, perhaps was even infatuated. I knew Palla had fought a terrible beast and killed it. I knew Palla was dead.

As I say, I knew it was madness, and by that, I knew I could not be mad. But I also knew that I must return to Betaniqi's palace to see her statue of my beloved Palla engaged in that final, horrible, fatal battle with the monster.

Return I did, over and over again. Had Betaniqi been a different sort of noblewoman, more comfortable with her peers, I would not have had so many opportunities. In her innocence, unaware of my sick obsession, she welcomed my company. We would talk for hours, laughing, and every time we would take a walk to the reflecting pond where I would always stop breathless before the sculpture of her mother.

It's a marvelous tradition you have, preserving these figures of your ancestors at their finest moments, I said, feeling her curious eyes on me. And the craftsmanship is without parallel.

You wouldn't believe me, laughed the girl. But it was a bit of scandal when my great grandfather began the custom. We Redguards hold a great reverence for our families, but we are warriors, not artists. He hired an traveling artist to create the first statues, and everyone admired them until it was revealed that the artist was an elf. An Altmer from the Summurset Isle.

Scandal!

It was, absolutely, Betaniqi nodded seriously. The idea that a pompous, wicked elf's hands had formed these figures of noble Redguard warriors was unthinkable, profane, irreverent, everything bad you can imagine. But my great grandfather's heart was in the beauty of it, and his philosophy of using the best to honor the best passed down to us all. I would not have even considered having a lesser artist create the statues of my parents, even if it would have been more allegiant to my culture.

They're all exquisite, I said.

But you like the one of my mother most of all, she smiled. I see you look at it even when you seem to be looking at the others. It's my favorite also.

Would you tell me more about her? I asked, trying to keep my voice light and conversational.

Oh, she would have said she was nothing extraordinary, but she was, the girl said, picking a flower from the garden. My father died when I was quite young, and she had so many roles to fill, but she did them all effortlessly. We have a great many business interests and she was brilliant at managing everything. Certainly better than I am now. All it took was her smile and everyone obeyed, and those that didn't paid dearly. She was very witty and charming, but a formidable force when the need arose for her to fight. Hundreds of battles, but I can never remember a moment of feeling neglected or unloved. I literally thought she was too strong for death. Stupid, I know, but when she went to battle that -- that horrible creature, that freak from a mad wizard's laboratory, I never even thought she would not return. She was kind to her friends and ruthless to her enemies. What more can one say about a woman than that?

Poor Betaniqi's eyes teared up with remembrance. What sort of villain was I to goad her so, in order to satisfy my perverted longings? Sheogorath could never have conflicted a mortal man more than me. I found myself both weeping and filled with desire. Palla not only looked like a goddess, but from her daughter's story, she was one.

That night while undressing for bed, I rediscovered the black disc I had stolen from Magister Tendixus's office weeks before. I had half-forgotten about its existence, that mysterious necromantic artifact which the mage believed could resurrect a dead love. Almost by pure instinct, I found myself placing the disc on my heart and whispering, Palla.

A momentary chill filled my chamber. My breath hung in the air in a mist before dissipating. Frightened I dropped the disc. It took a moment before my reason returned, and with it the inescapable conclusion: the artifact could fulfill my desire.

Until the early morning hours, I tried to raise my mistress from the chains of Oblivion, but it was no use. I was no necromancer. I entertained thoughts of how to ask one of the Magisters to help me, but I remembered how Magister Ilther had bid me to destroy it. They would expel me from the Guild if I went to them and destroy the disc themselves. And with it, my only key to bringing my love to me.

I was in my usual semi-torpid condition the next day in classes. Magister Ilther himself was lecturing on his specialty, the School of Enchantment. He was a dull speaker with a monotone voice, but suddenly I felt as if every shadow had left the room and I was in a palace of light.

When most persons think of my particular science, they think of the process of invention. The infusing of charms and spells into objects. The creation of a magickal blade, perhaps, or a ring. But the skilled enchanter is also a catalyst. The same mind that can create something new can also provoke greater power from something old. A ring that can generate warmth for a novice, on the hand of such a talent can bake a forest black. The fat man chuckled: Not that I'm advocating that. Leave that for the School of Destruction.

That week all the initiates were asked to choose a field of specialization. All were surprised when I turned my back on my old darling, the School of Illusion. It seemed ridiculous to me that I had ever entertained an affection for such superficial charms. All my intellect was now focused on the School of Enchantment, the means by which I could free the power of the disc.

For months thereafter, I barely slept. A few hours a week, I'd spend with Betaniqi and my statue to give myself strength and inspiration. All the rest of my time was spent with Magister Ilther or his assistants, learning everything I could about enchantment. They taught me how to taste the deepest levels of magicka within a stored object.

A simple spell cast once, no matter how skillfully and no matter how spectacularly, is ephemeral, of the present, what it is and no more, sighed Magister Ilther. But placed in a home, it develops into an almost living energy, maturing and ripening so only its surface is touched when an unskilled hand wields it. You must consider yourself a miner, digging deeper to pull forth the very heart of gold.

Every night when the laboratory closed, I practiced what I had learned. I could feel my power grow and with it, the power of the disc. Whispering Palla, I delved into the artifact, feeling every slight nick that marked the runes and every facet of the gemstones. At times I was so close to her, I felt hands touching mine. But something dark and bestial, the reality of death I suppose, would always break across the dawning of my dream. With it came an overwhelming rotting odor, which the initiates in the chambers next to mine began to complain about.

Something must have crawled into the floorboards and died, I offered lamely.

Magister Ilther praised my scholarship, and allowed me the use of his laboratory after hours to further my studies. Yet no matter what I learned, Palla seemed scarcely closer. One night, it all ended. I was swaying in a deep ecstasy, moaning her name, the disc bruising my chest, when a sudden lightning flash through the window broke my concentration. A tempest of furious rain roared over Mir Corrup. I went to close the shutters, and when I returned to my table, I found that the disc had shattered.

I broke into hysterical sobs and then laughter. It was too much for my fragile mind to bear such a loss after so much time and study. The next day and the day after, I spent in my bed, burning with a fever. Had I not been a Mages Guild with so many healers, I likely would have died. As it was, I provided an excellent study for the budding young scholars.

When at last I was well enough to walk, I went to visit Betaniqi. She was charming as always, never once commenting on my appearance, which must have been ghastly. Finally I gave her reason to worry when I politely but firmly declined to walk with her along the reflecting pool.

But you love looking at the statuary, she exclaimed.

I felt that I owed her the truth and much more. Dear lady, I love more than the statuary. I love your mother. She is all I've been able to think about for months now, ever since you and I first removed the tarp from that blessed sculpture. I don't know what you think of me now, but I have been obsessed with learning how to bring her back from the dead.

Betaniqi stared at me, eyes wide. Finally she spoke: I think you need to leave now. I don't know if this is a terrible jest --

Believe me, I wish it were. You see, I failed. I don't know why. It could not have been that my love wasn't strong enough, because no man had a stronger love. Perhaps my skills as an enchanter are not masterful, but it wasn't from lack of study! I could feel my voice rise and knew I was beginning to rant, but I could not hold back. Perhaps the fault lay in that your mother never met me, but I think that only the caster's love is taken into account in the necromantic spell. I don't know what it was! Maybe that horrible creature, the monster that killed her, cast some sort of curse on her with its dying breath! I failed! And I don't know why!

With a surprising burst of speed and strength for so small a lady, Betaniqi shoved herself against me. She screamed, Get out! and I fled out the door.

Before she slammed the door shut, I offered my pathetic apologies: I'm so sorry, Betaniqi, but consider that I wanted to bring your mother back to you. It's madness, I know, but there is only one thing that's certain in my life and that's that I love Palla.

The door was nearly shut, but the girl opened it crack to ask tremulously: You love whom?

Palla! I cried to the Gods.

My mother, she whispered angrily. Was named Xarlys. Palla was the monster.

I stared at the closed door for Mara knows how much time, and then began the long walk back to the Mages Guild. My memory searched through the minutiae to the Tales and Tallows night so long ago when I first beheld the statue, and first heard the name of my love. That Breton initiate, Gelyn had spoken. He was behind me. Was he recognizing the beast and not the lady?

I turned the lonely bend that intersected with the outskirts of Mir Corrup, and a large shadow rose from the ground where it had been sitting, waiting for me.

Palla, I groaned. Pal La.

Kiss me, it howled.

And that brings my story up to the present moment. Love is red, like blood.

BOOKNAMEBookSkill_Alteration1MODLm\Text_Octavo_08.nifFNAMBreathing WaterBKDT@ ITEXm\Tx_book_02.tgaTEXT

Breathing Water
by Haliel Myrm



He walked through the dry, crowded streets of Bal Fell, glad to be among so many strangers. In the wharfs of Vivec, he had no such anonymity. They knew him to be a smuggler, but here, he could be anyone. A lower-class peddler perhaps. A student even. Some people even pushed against him as he walked past as if to say, We would not dream of being so rude as to acknowledge that you don't belong here.

Seryne Relas was not in any of the taverns, but he knew she was somewhere, perhaps behind a tenement window or poking around in a dunghill for an exotic ingredient for some spell or another. He knew little of the ways of sorceresses, but that they always seemed to be doing something eccentric. Because of this prejudice, he nearly passed by the old Dunmer woman having a drink from a well. It was too prosaic, but he knew from the look of her that she was Seryne Relas, the great sorceress.

I have gold for you, he said to her back. If you will teach me the secret of breathing water.

She turned around, a wide wet grin stretched across her weathered features. I ain't breathing it, boy. I'm just having a drink.

Don't mock me, he said, stiffly. Either you're Seryne Relas and you will teach me the spell of breathing water, or you aren't. Those are the only possibilities.

If you're going to learn to breath water, you're going to have to learn there are more possibilities than that, boy. The School of Alteration is all about possibilities, changing patterns, making things be what they could be. Maybe I ain't Seryne Relas, but I can teach how to breathe water, she wiped her mouth dry. Or maybe I am Seryne Relas and I won't. Or maybe even I can teach you to breath water, but you can't learn.

I'll learn, he said, simply.

Why don't you just buy yourself a spell of water breathing or a potion over at the Mages Guild? she asked. That's how it's generally done.

They're not powerful enough, he said. I need to be underwater for a long time. I'm willing to pay whatever you ask, but I don't want any questions. I was told you could teach me.

What's your name, boy?

That's a question, he replied. His name was Tharien Winloth, but in Vivec, they called him the Tollman. His job, such as it was, was collecting a percentage of the loot from the smugglers when they came into harbor to bring to his boss in the Camonna Tong. Of the value of that percentage, he earned another percentage. In the end it was very small indeed. He had scarcely any gold of his own, and what he had, he gave to Seryne Relas.

The lessons began that very day. The sorceress brought her pupil, who she simply called boy, out to a low sandbank along the sea.

I will teach you a powerful spell for breathing water, she said. But you must become a master of it. As with all spells and all skills, you more you practice, the better you get. Even that ain't enough. To achieve true mastery, you must understand what it is you're doing. It ain't simply enough to perform a perfect thrust of a blade -- you must also know what you are doing and why.

That's common sense, said Tharien

Yes, it is, said Seryne, closing her eyes. But the spells of Alteration are all about uncommon sense. The infinite possibilities, breaking the sky, swallowing space, dancing with time, setting ice on fire, believing that the unreal may become real. You must learn the rules of the cosmos and then break them.

That sounds ... very difficult, replied Tharien, trying to keep a straight face.

Seryne pointed to the small silver fish darting along the water's edge: They don't find it so. They breath water just fine.

But that's not magic.

What I'm saying to you, boy, is that it is.

For several weeks, Seryne drilled her student, and the more he understood about what he was doing and the more he practiced, the longer he could breath underwater. When he found that he could cast the spell for as long as he needed, he thanked the sorceress and bade her farewell.

There is one last lesson I have to teach you, she said. You must learn that desire is not enough. The world will end your spell no matter how good you are, and no matter how much you want it.

That's a lesson I'm happy not to learn, he said, and left at once for the short journey back to Vivec.

The wharfs were much the same, with all the same smells, the same sounds, and the same characters. His boss had found a new Tollman, he learned from his mates. They were still looking out for the smuggler ship Morodrung, but they had given up hope of ever seeing it. Tharien knew they would not. He had seen it sink from the wharf a long time ago.

On a moonless night, he cast his spell and dove into the thrashing purple waves. He kept his mind on the world of possibilities, that books could sing, that green was blue, that that water was air, that every stroke and kick brought him closer to a sunken ship filled with treasure. He felt magicka surge all around him as he pushed his way deeper down. Ahead he saw a ghostly shadow of the Morodrung, its mast billowing in a wind of deep water currents. He also felt his spell begin to fade. He could break reality long enough to breath water all the way back up to the surface, but not enough to reach the ship.

The next night, he dove again, and this time, the spell was stronger. He could see the vessel in detail, clouded over and dusted in sediment. The wound in its hull where it had struck the reef. A glint of gold beckoning from within. But still he felt reality closing in, and he had to surface.

The third night, he made it into the steerage, past the bloated corpses of the sailors, nibbled and picked apart by fish. Their glassy eyes bulging, their mouths stretched open. Had they only known the spell, he thought briefly, but his mind was more occupied by the gold scattered along the floor, the boxes that contained them shattered. He considered scooping as much he could carry into his pockets, but a sturdy iron box seemed to bespeak more treasures.

On the wall was a row of keys. He took each down and tried it on the locked box, but none opened it. One key, however, was missing. Thalien looked around the room. Where could it be? His eyes went to the corpse of one of the sailors, floating in a dance of death not far from the box, his hands tightly clutching something. It was a key. When the ship had begun to sink, this sailor had evidently gone for the iron box. Whatever was in it had to be very valuable.

Thalien took the sailor's key and opened the box. It was filled with broken glass. He rummaged around until he felt something solid, and pulled out two flasks of some kind of wine. He smiled as he considered the foolishness of the poor alcoholic. This was what was important to the sailor, out of all the treasure in the Morodrung.

Then, suddenly, Thalien Winloth felt reality.

He had not been paying attention to the grim, tireless advance of the world on his spell. It was fading away, his ability to breath water. There was no time to surface. There was no time to do anything. As he sucked in, his lungs filled with cold, briny water.

A few days later, the smugglers working on the wharf came upon the drowned body of the former Tollman. Finding a body in the water in Vivec was not in itself noteworthy, but the subject that they discussed over many bottles of flin was how did it happen that he drowned with two potions of water breathing in his hands.

BOOK#,NAMEbookskill_illusion4MODLm\Text_Octavo_04.nifFNAMPalla, Book IBKDT@@ ITEXm\Tx_octavo_04.tgaTEXT+

Palla
Book I
by Vojne Mierstyyd



Palla. Pal La. I remember when I first heard that name, not long ago at all. It was at a Tales and Tallows ball at a very fine estate west of Mir Corrup, to which I and my fellow Mages Guild initiates had found ourselves unexpectedly invited. Truth be told, we needn't have been too surprised. There were very few other noble families in Mir Corrup -- the region had its halcyon days as a resort for the wealthy far back in the 2nd era -- and on reflection, it was only appropriate to have sorcerers and wizards present at a supernatural holiday. Not that we were anything more exotic than students at a small, nonexclusive charterhouse of the Guild, but like I said, there was a paucity of other choices available.

For close to a year, the only home I had known was the rather ramshackle if sprawling grounds of the Mir Corrup Mages Guild. My only companions were my fellow initiates, most of which only tolerated me, and the masters, whose bitterness at being at a backwater Guild prompted never-ending abuse.

Immediately the School of Illusion had attracted me. The Magister who taught us recognized me as an apt pupil who loved not only the spells of the science but their philosophical underpinnings. There was something about the idea of warping the imperceptible energies of light, sound, and mind that appealed to my nature. Not for me the flashy schools of destruction and alteration, the holy schools of restoration and conjuration, the practical schools of alchemy and enchantment, or the chaotic school of mysticism. No, I was never so pleased as to take an ordinary object and by a little magic make it seem something other than what it was.

It would have taken more imagination than I had to apply that philosophy to my monotonous life. After the morning's lessons, we were assigned tasks before our evening classes. Mine had been to clean out the study of a recently deceased resident of the Guild, and categorize his clutter of spellbooks, charms, and incunabula.

It was a lonely and tedious appointment. Magister Tendixus was an inveterate collector of worthless junk, but I was reprimanded any time I threw something away of the least possible value. Gradually I learned enough to deliver each of his belongings to the appropriate department: potions of healing to the Magisters of Restoration, books on physical phenomena to the Magisters of Alteration, herbs and minerals to the Alchemists, and soulgems and bound items to the Enchanters. After one delivery to the Enchanters, I was leaving with my customary lack of appreciation, when Magister Ilther called me back.

Boy, said the portly old man, handing me back one item. Destroy this.

It was a small black disc covered with runes with a ring of red-orange gems like bones circling its periphery.

I'm sorry, Magister, I stammered. I thought it was something you'd be interested in.

Take it to the great flame and destroy it, he barked, turning his back on me. You never brought it here.

My interest was piqued, because I knew the only thing that would make him react in such a way. Necromancy. I went back to Magister Tendixus's chamber and poured through his notes, looking for any reference to the disc. Unfortunately, most of the notes had been written in a strange code that I was powerless to decipher. I was so fascinated by the mystery that I nearly arrived late for my evening class in Enchantment, taught by Magister Ilther himself.

For the next several weeks, I divided my time categorizing the general debris and making my deliveries, and researching the disc. I came to understand that my instinct was correct: the disc was a genuine necromantic artifact. Though I couldn't understand most of the Magister's notes, I determined that he thought it to be a means of resurrecting a loved one from the grave.

Sadly, the time came when the chamber had been categorized and cleared, and I was given another assignment, assisting in the stables of the Guild's menagerie. At least finally I was working with some of my fellow initiates and had the opportunity of meeting the common folk and nobles who came to the Guild on various errands. Thus was I employed when we were all invited to the Tales and Tallows ball.

If the expected glamour of the evening were not enough, our hostess was reputed to be young, rich, unmarried orphan from Hammerfell. Only a month or two before had she moved to our desolate, wooded corner of the Imperial Province to reclaim an old family manorhouse and grounds. The initiates at the Guild gossiped like old women about the mysterious young lady's past, what had happened to her parents, why she had left or been driven from her homeland. Her name was Betaniqi, and that was all we knew.

We wore our robes of initiation with pride as we arrived for the ball. At the enormous marble foyer, a servant announced each of our names as if we were royalty, and we strutted into the midst of the revelers with great puffery. Of course, we were then promptly ignored by one and all. In essence, we were unimportant figures to lend some thickness to the ball. Background characters.

The important people pushed through us with perfect politeness. There was old Lady Schaudirra discussing diplomatic appointments to Balmora with the Duke of Rimfarlin. An orc warlord entertained a giggling princess with tales of rape and pillage. Three of the Guild Magisters worried with three painfully thin noble spinsters about the haunting of Daggerfall. Intrigues at the Imperial and various royal courts were analyzed, gently mocked, fretted over, toasted, dismissed, evaluated, mitigated, admonished, subverted. No one looked our way even when we were right next to them. It was as if my skill at illusion had somehow rendered us all invisible.

I took my flagon out to the terrace. The moons were doubled, equally luminous in the sky and in the enormous reflecting pool that stretched out into the garden. The white marble statuary lining the sides of the pool caught the fiery glow and seemed to burn like torches in the night. The sight was so otherworldly that I was mesmerized by it, and the strange Redguard figures immortalized in stone. Our hostess had made her home there so recently that some of the sculptures were still wrapped in sheets that billowed and swayed in the gentle breeze. I don't know how long I stared before I realized I wasn't alone.

She was so small and so dark, not only in her skin but in her clothing, that I nearly took her for a shadow. When she turned to me, I saw that she was very beautiful and young, not more than seventeen.

Are you our hostess? I finally asked.

Yes, she smiled, blushing. But I'm ashamed to admit that I'm very bad at it. I should be inside with my new neighbors, but I think we have very little in common.

It's been made abundantly clear that they hope I have nothing in common with them either, I laughed. When I'm a little higher than an initiate in the Mages Guild, they might see me as more of an equal.

I don't understand the concept of equality in Cyrodiil yet, she frowned. In my culture, you proved your worth, not just expected it. My parents both were great warriors, as I hope to be.

Her eyes went out to the lawn, to the statues.

Do the sculptures represent your parents?

That's my father Pariom there, she said gesturing to a life-sized representation of a massively built man, unashamedly naked, gripping another warrior by the throat and preparing to decapitate him with an outstretched blade. It was clearly a realistic depiction. Pariom's face was plain, even slightly ugly with a low forehead, a mass of tangled hair, stubble on his cheeks. Even a slight gap in his teeth, which no sculptor would surely have invented except to do justice to his model's true idiosyncrasies.

And your mother? I asked, pointing to a nearby statue of a proud, rather squat warrior woman in a mantilla and scarf, holding a child.

Oh no, she laughed. That was my uncle's old nurse. Mother's statue still has a sheet over it.

I don't know what prompted me to insist that we unveil the statue that she pointed to. In all likelihood, it was nothing but fate, and a selfish desire to continue the conversation. I was afraid that if I did not give her a project, she would feel the need to return to the party, and I would be alone again. At first she was reluctant. She had not yet made up her mind whether the statues would suffer in the wet, sometimes cold Cyrodilic climate. Perhaps all should be covered, she reasoned. It may be that she was merely making conversation, and was reluctant as I was to end the stand-off and be that much closer to having to return to the party.

In a few minutes time, we tore the tarp from the statue of Betaniqi's mother. That is when my life changed forevermore.

She was an untamed spirit of nature, screaming in a struggle with a misshapen monstrous figure in black marble. Her gorgeous, long fingers were raking across the creature's face. The monster's talons gripped her right breast in a sort of caress that prefaces a mortal wound. Its legs and hers wound around one another in a battle that was a dance. I felt annihilated. This lithe but formidable woman was beautiful beyond all superficial standards. Whoever had sculpted it had somehow captured not only a face and figure of a goddess, but her power and will. She was both tragic and triumphant. I fell instantly and fatally in love with her.

I had not even noticed when Gelyn, one of my fellow initiates who was leaving the party, came up behind us. Apparently I had whispered the word magnificent, because I heard Betaniqi reply as if miles away, Yes, it is magnificent. That's why I was afraid of exposing it to the elements.

Then I heard, clearly, like a stone breaking water, Gelyn: Mara preserve me. That must be Palla.

Then you heard of my mother? asked Betaniqi, turning his way.

I hail from Wayrest, practically on the border to Hammerfell. I don't think there's anyone who hasn't heard of your mother and her great heroism, ridding the land of that abominable beast. She died in that struggle, didn't she?

Yes, said the girl sadly. But so too did the creature.

For a moment, we were all silent. I don't remember anything more of that night. Somehow I knew I was invited to dine the next evening, but my mind and heart had been entirely and forever more arrested by the statue. I returned back to the Guild, but my dreams were fevered and brought me no rest. Everything seemed diffused by white light, except for one beautiful, fearsome woman. Palla.
BOOKNAMEBookSkill_Alchemy2MODLm\Text_Octavo_03.nifFNAMThe Cake and the DiamondBKDT@@ITEXm\Tx_octavo_03.tgaTEXT

The Cake and The Diamond
by Athyn Muendil



I was in the Rat and the Pot, a foreigner cornerclub in Ald'ruhn, talking to my fellow Rats when I first saw the woman. Now, Breton women are fairly common in the Rat and the Pot. As a breed, they seem inclined to wander far from their perches in High Rock. Old Breton women, however, are not so migratory, and the wizened old biddy drew attention to herself, wandering about the room, talking to everyone.

Nimloth and Oediad were at their usual places, drinking their usual stuff. Oediad was showing off a prize he had picked up in some illicit manner -- a colossal diamond, large as a baby's hand, and clear as spring water. I was admiring it when I heard the creaking of old bones behind me.

Good day to you, friends, said the old woman. My name is Abelle Chriditte, and I am in need of financial assistance to facilitate my transportation to Ald Redaynia.

You'll want to see the Temple for charity, said Nimloth curtly.

I am not looking for charity, said Abelle. I'm looking to barter services.

Don't make me sick, old woman, laughed Oediad.

Did you say your name was Abelle Chriditte? I asked, Are you related to Abelle Chriditte, the High Rock alchemist?

Closely related, she said, with a cackle. We are the same person. Perhaps I could prepare you a potion in exchange for gold? I noticed that you have in your possession a very fine diamond. The magical qualities of diamonds are boundless.

Sorry, old woman, I ain't giving it up for magic. It was trouble enough stealing this one, said Oediad. I've got a fence who'll trade it for gold.

But your fence will demand a certain percentage, will he not? What if I could give you a potion of invisibility in exchange? In return for that diamond, you could have the means to steal many more. A very fair exchange of services, I would say.

It would be, but I have no gold to give you, said Oediad.

I'll take what remains of the diamond after I've made the potion, said Abelle. If you took it to the Mages Guild, you'd have to supply all the other ingredients and pay for it as well. But I learned my craft in the wild, where no Potion-makers existed to dissolve diamonds into dust. When you must do it all by hand, by simple skill, you are blessed with remnants those fool potion-makers at the Guild simply swallow up.

That sounds all very nice, said Nimloth, But how do we know your potion is going to work? If you make one potion, take the rest of Oediad's diamond, and leave, we won't know until you've gone whether the potion works or not.

Ah, trust is so rare these days, sighed Abelle. I suppose I could make two potions for you, and there'd still be a little bit of the diamond left for me. Not a lot, but perhaps enough to get me to Ald Redaynia. Then you could try the first potion right here and now, and see if you're satisfied or not.

But, I interjected. You could make one potion that works and one that doesn't, and take more of the diamond. She could even give you a slow-acting poison, and by the time she got to Ald Redaynia, you'd be dead.

Bleedin' Kynareth, you Dunmer are suspicious! I will hardly have any diamond left, but I could make two potions of two doses each, so you can satisfy yourself that the potion works and has no negative effects. If you still don't trust me, come along with me to my table and witness my craft if you'd like.

So it was decided that I would accompany Abelle back to her table where she had all her traveling bags full of herbs and minerals, to make certain that she was not making two different potions. It took nearly an hour of preparation, but she kindly allowed me to finish her half-filled flagon of wine while I watched her work. Splintering the diamond and powdering the pieces required the bulk of the time; over and over again, she waved her gnarled hands over the gem, intoning ancient enchantments, breaking the facets of the stone into smaller and smaller pieces. Separately she made pastes of minced bittergreen, crushed red bulbs of dell'arco spae, and driblets of ciciliani oil. I finished the wine.

Old woman, I finally said with a sigh. How much longer is this going to take? I'm getting tired of watching you work.

The Mages Guild has fooled the populace into thinking alchemy is a science, she said. But if you're tired, rest your eyes.

My eyes closed, seemingly of their own volition. But there had been something in that wine. Something that made me do what she asked.

I think I'll make up the potion as cakes. It's much more potent that way. Now, tell me, young man, what will your friends do once I give them the potion?

Mug you in the street afterwards to retrieve the rest of the diamond, I said simply. I didn't want to tell the truth, but there it was.

I thought so, but I wanted to be certain. You may open your eyes now.

I opened my eyes. Abelle had made a small presentation on a wooden platter: two small cakes and a silver cutting knife.

Pick up the cakes and bring them to the table, said Abelle. And don't say anything, except to agree with whatever I say.

I did as I was told. It was a curious sensation. I didn't really mind being her puppet. Of course, in retrospect, I resent it, but it seemed perfectly natural at the time to obey without question.

Abelle handed the cakes to Oediad and I dutifully verified that both cakes were made the same way. She suggested that he cut one of the cakes in half, and she would take one piece and he'd take the other, just so he would know that they worked and weren't poisoned. Oediad thought it was a good idea, and used Abelle's knife to cut the cake. Abelle took the piece on the left and popped into her mouth. Oediad took the piece on the right and swallowed it more cautiously.

Abelle and all the bags she was carrying vanished from sight almost instantly. Nothing happened to Oediad.

Why did it work for the witch and not for me? cried Oediad.

Because the diamond dust was only on the left-hand side of the blade, said the old alchemist through me. I felt her control lessening as the distance grew and she hurried invisibly down the dark Ald'ruhn street away from the Rat and the Pot.

We never found Abelle Chriditte or the diamond. Whether she completed her pilgrimage to Ald Redaynia is anyone's guess. The cakes had no effect, except to give Oediad a bad case of droops that lasted for nearly a week.
BOOK,NAMEBookSkill_Armorer1MODLm\Text_Folio_open_01.NIFFNAMThe Armorer's ChallengeBKDT@EITEXm\Tx_folio_open_01.tgaTEXT

The Armorers' Challenge
By Mymophonus



Three hundred years ago, when Katariah became Empress, the first and only Dunmer to rule all of Tamriel, she faced opposition from the Imperial Council. Even after she convinced them that she would be the best regent to rule the Empire while her husband Pelagius sought treatment for his madness, there was still conflict. In particular from the Duke of Vengheto, Thane Minglumire, who took a particular delight in exposing all of the Empress's lack of practical knowledge.

In this particular instance, Katariah and the Council were discussing the unrest in Black Marsh and the massacre of Imperial troops outside the village of Armanias. The sodden swampland and the sweltering climate, particular in summertide, would endanger the troops if they wore their usual armor.

I know a very clever armorer, said Katariah, His name is Hazadir, an Argonian who knows the environments our army will be facing. I knew him in Vivec where he was a slave to the master armorer there, before he moved to the Imperial City as a freedman. We should have him design armor and weaponry for the campaign.

Minglumire gave a short, barking laugh: She wants a slave to design the armor and weaponry for our troops! Sirollus Saccus is the finest armorer in the Imperial City. Everyone knows that.

After much debate, it was finally decided to have both armorers contend for the commission. The Council also elected two champions of equal power and prowess, Nandor Beraid and Raphalas Eul, to battle using the arms and armaments of the real competitors in the struggle. Whichever champion won, the armorer who supplied him would earn the Imperial commission. It was decided that Beraid would be outfitted by Hazadir, and Eul by Saccus.

The fight was scheduled to commence in seven days.

Sirollus Saccus began work immediately. He would have preferred more time, but he recognized the nature of the test. The situation in Armanias was urgent. The Empire had to select their armorer quickly, and once selected, the preferred armorer had to act swiftly and produce the finest armor and weaponry for the Imperial army in Black Marsh. It wasn't just the best armorer they were looking for. It was the most efficient.

Saccus had only begun steaming the half-inch strips of black virgin oak to bend into bands for the flanges of the armor joints when there was a knock at his door. His assistant Phandius ushered in the visitor. It was a tall reptilian of common markings, a dull, green-fringed hood, bright black eyes, and a dull brown cloak. It was Hazadir, Katariah's preferred armorer.

I wanted to wish you the best of luck on the -- is that ebony?

It was indeed. Saccus had bought the finest quality ebony weave available in the Imperial City as soon as he heard of the competition and had begun the process of smelting it. Normally it was a six-month procedure refining the ore, but he hoped that a massive convection oven stoked by white flames born of magicka would shorten the operation to three days. Saccus proudly pointed out the other advancements in his armory. The acidic lime pools to sharpen the blade of the dai-katana to an unimaginable degree of sharpness. The Akaviri forge and tongs he would use to fold the ebony back and forth upon itself. Hazadir laughed.

Have you been to my armory? It's two tiny smoke-filled rooms. The front is a shop. The back is filled with broken armor, some hammers, and a forge. That's it. That's your competition for the millions of gold pieces in Imperial commission.

I'm sure the Empress has some reason to trust you to outfit her troops, said Sirollus Saccus, kindly. He had, after all, seen the shop and knew that what Hazadir said was true. It was a pathetic workshop in the slums, fit only for the lowliest of adventurers to get their iron daggers and cuirasses repaired. Saccus had decided to make the best quality regardless of the inferiority of his rival. It was his way and how he became the best armorer in the Imperial City.

Out of kindness, and more than a bit of pride, Saccus showed Hazadir how, by contrast, things should be done in a real professional armory. The Argonian acted as an apprentice to Saccus, helping him refine the ebony ore, and to pound it and fold it when it cooled. Over the next several days, they worked together to create a beautiful dai-katana with an edge honed sharp enough to trim a mosquito's eyebrows, enchanted with flames along its length by one of the Imperial Battlemages, as well as a suit of armor of bound wood, leather, silver, and ebony to resist the winds of Oblivion.

On the day of the battle, Saccus, Hazadir, and Phandius finished polishing the armor and brought in Raphalas Eul for the fitting. Hazadir left only then, realizing that Nandor Beraid would be at his shop shortly to be outfitted.

The two warriors met before the Empress and Imperial Council in the arena, which had been flooded slightly to simulate the swampy conditions of Black Marsh. From the moment Saccus saw Eul in his suit of heavy ebony and blazing dai-katana and Beraid in his collection of dusty, rusted lizard-scales and spear from Hazadir's shop, he knew who would win. And he was right.

The first blow from the dai-katana lodged in Beraid's soft shield, as there was no metal trim to deflect it. Before Eul could pull his sword back, Beraid let go of the now-flaming shield, still stuck on the sword, and poked at the joints of Eul's ebony armor with his spear. Eul finally retrieved his sword from the ruined shield and slashed at Beraid, but his light armor was scaled and angled, and the attacks rolled off into the water, extinguishing the dai-katana's flames. When Beraid struck at Eul's feet, he fell into the churned mud and was unable to move. The Empress, out of mercy, called a victor.

Hazadir received the commission and thanks to his knowledge of Argonian battle tactics and weaponry and how best to combat them, he designed implements of war that brought down the insurrection in Armanias. Katariah won the respect of Council, and even, grudgingly, that of Thane Minglumire. Sirollus Saccus went to Morrowind to learn what Hazadir learned there, and was never heard from again.

BOOK}#NAMEBookSkill_Medium Armor2MODLm\Text_Folio_01.nifFNAMBone, Part OneBKDT@,ITEXm\Tx_folio_01.tgaTEXT"

Bone, Part I
By Tavi Dromio



It seems to me, said Garaz, thoughtfully looking into the depths of his flin. That all great ideas come from pure happenstance. Take for instance, the story I told you last night about my cousin. If he hadn't fallen off that horse, he never would have become one of the Empire's foremost alchemists.

It was late one Middas night at the King's Ham, and the regulars were always especially inclined toward philosophy.

I disagree, replied Xiomara, firmly but politely. Great ideas and inventions are most often formed slowly over time by diligence and hard work. If you'll recall my tale from last month, the young lady -- who I assure you is based on a real person -- only recognized her one true love after she had slept with practically everyone in Northpoint.

I put it to you that neither is the case, said Hallgerd, pouring a topper on his mug of greef. The greatest inventions are created by extraordinary need. Must I remind you of the story I told some time ago about Arslic Oan and the invention of bonemold?

The problem with your theory is that your example is entirely fictional, sniffed Xiomara.

I don't believe I remember the story of Arslic Oan and the invention of bonemold, frowned Garaz. Are you sure you told us?

Well, this happened many, many, many years ago, when Vvardenfell was a beauteous green land, when Dunmer were Chimer and Dwemer and Nord lived together in relative peace when they weren't trying to kill one another, Hallgerd relaxed in his chair, warming to his theme. When the sun and moons all hung in the sky together--

Lord, Mother, and Wizard! grumbled Xiomara. If I'm going to be forced to hear your ridiculous story again, pray don't embellish and make it any longer than it has to be.

This all happened in Vvardenfell quite some time ago (said Hallgerd, ignoring Xiomara's interruption with admirable restraint) during an era of a king you would never have heard of. Arslic Oan was one of this king's nobles and very, very disagreeable fellow. Because of his allegiance to the crown, the king had felt the need to grant him a castle and land, but he didn't necessarily want him as a neighbor so the land he granted was far from civilization. Right in an area of Vvardenfell that is, even today, not quite civilized to this day. Arslic Oan built a walled stronghold and settled down with his unhappy slaves to enjoy a quiet if somewhat grim life.

It was not long before his stronghold's integrity was tested. A tribe of cannibalistic Nords had been living in the valley for some time, mostly dining on one another, but occasionally foraging what they liked to call dark meat, the Dunmer.

Xiomara laughed with appreciation. Marvelous! I don't remember that from before. It's funny how you don't hear much about the Nords' rampant cannibalism nowadays.

This was obviously, as I've said, quite some time ago (said Hallgerd, glaring at part of his audience with civil malevolence) and things were in many ways quite different. These cannibalistic Nords began attacking Arslic Oan's slaves in the fields, and then slowly grew bolder, until they held the very stronghold itself under siege. They were quite a fearsome sight you can imagine: a horde of wild-eyed men and women with dagger-like teeth filed to tear flesh, wielding massive clubs, cloaked only in the skins of their victims.

Arslic Oan assumed that if he ignored them, they'd go away.

Unfortunately, the first thing that the Nords did was to poison the stream that carried water into the walled stronghold. All the livestock and most of the slaves died very quickly before this was discovered. There was no hope of rescue, at least for several months when the king's emissaries would come reluctantly to visit the disagreeable vassal. The next closest source of water was on the other side of the hill, so Arslic Oan sent three of his slaves with empty jugs to bring some back.

They were beaten with clubs and eaten before they were a few feet outside the stronghold gates. The next group he sent through he gave sticks to defend themselves. They made it a few feet farther, but were also overwhelmed, beaten, and devoured. It was obvious that better personal defensive was required. Arslic Oan went to talk to his armorer, one of his few slaves with specific talents and duties.

The slaves need armor if they're going to make it to the river and back, he said. Collect every scrap of steel and iron you can find, every hinge, knife, ring, cup, everything that isn't needed to keep the walls sturdy, smelt it, and give me the most and the best armor you can, very, very quickly.

The armorer, whose name was Gorkith, was used to Arslic Oan's demands, and knew that there could be no compromise on the quality and quantity of the armor, or the speed at which he worked. He labored for thirty hours without a break - and, recall, without any water to slake his thirst as he struggled with the kiln and anvil - until finally, he had six suits of mixed-metal armor.

Six slaves were chosen, clad in the armor, and sent with jars to collect river water. At first, the mission progressed well. The Nord attacked the armored slaves with their clubs, but they continued their march forward, warding off the blows. Gradually, however, the slaves seemed to be walking uncertainly, dazed by the endless barrage. Eventually, one by one, they fell, the armor was peeled from their bodies, and they were eaten.

The slaves couldn't move quickly enough in that heavy armor you made, said Arslic Oan to Gorkith. I need you to collect all the cadavers of the poisoned livestock, strip their skin, and give me the most and the best leather armor you can, very, very quickly.

Gorklith did as he was told, though it was a particularly repulsive task given the rancid state of the livestock. Normally it takes quite a time to treat and cure leather, so I understand, but Gorklith worked at it tirelessly, and in a half a day he had twelve suits of leather armor.

Twelve slaves were chosen, clad in the armor, and sent with jars to collect river water. They progressed, at first, much better than the earlier expedition. Two fell almost immediately, but the others had some luck out-maneuvering their assailants while deflecting an occasional blow of the club. Several got to the river, three were able to fill up their jars, and one fellow very nearly made it back to the stronghold gates. Alas, he fell and was eaten. The Nords possessed a remarkably healthy appetite.

What we need before I completely run out of slaves, said Arslic Oan thoughtfully to Gorkith. Is an armor sturdier than leather but lighter than metal.

The armorer had already considered that and taken stock of the materials available. He had thought about doing something with stone or wood, but there were practical problems with demolishing more of the stronghold. The next most prevalent stuff present in the stronghold was skinned dead bodies, hunks of muscle, fat, blood, and bone. For six hours, he toiled relentlessly until he produced eighteen suits of bonemold, the first ones ever created. Arslic Oan was somewhat dubious at the sight (and smell) but he was very thirsty, and willing to sacrifice another eighteen slaves if necessary.

Might I suggest, Gorklith queried tremulously, Having the slaves practice moving about in the armor, here in the courtyard, before sending them to face the Nords?

Arslic Oan coolly allowed it, and for a few hours, the slaves wandered about the stronghold courtyard in their suits of bonemold. They grew used to the give of the joints, the rigidity of the backplate, the weight pushed onto their shoulders and hips. They discovered how to plant their feet slightly askew to keep their balance steady; how to quickly turn, pivoting without falling down; how to break into a run and stop quickly. By the time they were sent out of the castle gates, they were easily very nearly almost amateurs in the use of their medium weight armor.

Seventeen of them were killed and eaten, but one made it back with a jar of water.

It's perfect nonsense, said Xiomara. But my point is still valid even so. Like all great inventors, even in fiction, the armorer worked diligently to create the bonemold.

I think there was a good deal of happenstance as well, frowned Garaz. But it is an appalling story. I wish you hadn't told me.

If you think that's appalling, grinned Hallgerd. You should hear what happened next.

BOOKNAMEBookSkill_Axe3MODLm\Text_Octavo_05.nifFNAM The SeedBKDT@@ITEXm\Tx_book_04.tgaTEXT

The Seed
Ancient Tales of the Dwemer, Part II
By Marobar Sul



The hamlet village of Lorikh was a quiet, peaceful Dwemer community nestled in the monochrome grey and tan dunes and boulders of the Dejasyte. No vegetation of any kind grew in Lorikh, though there were blackened vestiges of long dead trees scattered throughout the town. Kamdida arriving by caravan looked at her new home with despair. She was used to the forestland of the north where her father's family had haled. Here there was no shade, little water, and a great open sky. It looked like a dead land.

Her mother's family took Kamdida and her younger brother Nevith in, and was very kind to the orphans, but she felt lonely in the alien village. It was not until she met an old Argonian woman who worked at the water factory that Kamdida found a friend. Her name was Sigerthe, and she said that her family had lived in Lorikh centuries before the Dwemer arrived, when it was a great and beauteous forest.

Why did the trees die? asked Kamdida.

When there were Argonians only in this land, we never cut trees for we had no need for fuel or wooden structures such as you use. When the Dwemer came, we allowed them to use the plants as they needed them, provided they never touched the Hist, which are sacred to us and to the land. For many years, we lived peaceably. No one wanted for anything.

What happened?

Some of your scientists discovered that distilling a certain tree sap, molding it and drying it, they could create a resilient kind of armor called resin, said Sigerthe. Most of the trees that grew here had very thin ichor in their branches, but not the Hist. Many of them fairly glistened with sap, which made the Dwemer merchants greedy. They hired a woodsman named Juhnin to start clearing the sacred arbors for profit.

The old Argonian woman looked to the dusty ground and sighed, Of course, we Argonians cried out against it. It was our home, and the Hist, once gone, would never return. The merchants reconsidered, but Juhnin took it on his own to break our spirit. He proved one terrible, bloody day that his prodigious skill with the axe could be used against people as well as trees. Any Argonian who stood in his way was hewn asunder, children as well. The Dwemer people of Lorikh closed their doors and their ears to the cries of murder.

Horrible, gasped Kamdida.

It is difficult to explain, said Sigerthe. But the deaths of our living ones was not nearly as horrible to us as the death of our trees. You must understand that to my people, the Hist are where we come from and where we are going. To destroy our bodies is nothing; to destroy our trees is to annihilate us utterly. When Juhnin then turned his axe on the Hist, he killed the land. The water disappeared, the animals died, and all the other life that the trees nourished crumbled and dried to dust.
But you are still here? asked Kamdida. Why didn't you leave?

For us, we are trapped. I am one of the last of a dying people. Few of us are strong enough to live away from our ancestral groves, and sometimes, even now, there is a perfume in the air of Lorikh that gives us life. It will not be long until we are all gone.

Kamdida felt tears welling up in her eyes. Then I will be alone in this horrible place with no trees and no friends.

'We Argonians have an expression, said Sigerthe with a sad smile, taking Kamdida's hand. That the best soil for a seed is found in your heart.

Kamdida looked into the palm of her hand and saw that Sigerthe had given her a small black pellet. It was a seed. It looks dead.

It can only grow in one place in all Lorikh, said the old Argonian. Outside an old cottage in the hills outside town. I cannot go there, for the owner would kill me on sight and like all my people, I am too frail to defend myself now. But you can go there and plant the seed.

What will happen? asked Kamdida. Will the Hist return?

No. But some part of their power will.

That night, Kamdida stole from her house and into the hills. She knew the cottage Sigerthe had spoken of. Her aunt and uncle had told her never to go there. As she approached it, the door opened and an old but powerfully built man appeared, a mighty axe slung over his shoulder.

What are you doing here, child? he demanded. In the dark, I almost took you to be a lizard man.

I've lost my way in the dark, she said quickly. I'm trying to get back to my home in Lorikh.

Be on your way then.

Do you have a candle I might have? she asked piteously. I've been walking in circles and I'm afraid I'll only return back here without any light.

The old man grumbled and walked into his house. Quickly, Kamdida dug a hole in the dry dirt and buried the seed as deeply as she could. He returned with a lit candle.

See to it you don't come back here, he growled. Or I'll chop you in half.

He returned to his house and fire. The next morning when he awoke and opened the door, he found that his cottage was entirely sealed within an enormous tree. He picked up his axe and delivered blow and after blow to the wood, but he could never break through. He tried side chops, but the wood healed itself. He tried an upper chop followed by an under chop to form a wedge, but the wood sealed.

Much time went by before someone discovered old Juhnin's emaciated body lying in front of his open door, still holding his blunted, broken axe. It was a mystery to all what he had been chopping with it, but the legend began circulating through Lorikh that Hist sap was found on the blade.

Shortly thereafter, small desert flowers began pushing through the dry dirt in the town. Trees and plants newly sown began to live tolerably well, if not luxuriantly. The Hist did not return, but Kamdida and the people of Lorikh noticed that at a certain time around twilight, long, wide shadows of great, bygone trees would fill the streets and hills.

Publisher's Note:

"The Seed" is one of Marobar Sul's tales whose origins are well known. This tale originated from the Argonian slaves of southern Morrowind. "Marobar Sul" merely replaced the Dunmer with Dwemer and claimed he found it in a Dwemer ruin. Furthermore, he later claimed that the Argonian version of the tale was merely a retelling of his "original!"

Lorikh, while clearly not a Dwemer name, simply does not exist, and in fact "Lorikh" was a name commonly used, incorrectly, for Dunmer men in Gor Felim's plays. The Argonian versions of the story usually take place on Vvardenfell, usually in the Telvanni city of Sadrith Mora. Of course the so-called "scholars" of Temple Zero will probably claim this story has something to do with "Lorkhan" simply because the town starts with the letter L.
BOOKNAMEbookskill_security4MODLm\Text_Octavo_01.nifFNAMChance's FollyBKDT@@ITEXm\Tx_octavo_01.tgaTEXT

Chance's Folly
by Zylmoc Golge



By the time she was sixteen, Minevah Iolos had been an unwelcome guest in every shop and manor in Balmora. Sometimes, she would take everything of value within; other times, it was enough to experience the pure pleasure of finding a way past the locks and traps. In either situation, she would leave a pair of dice in a prominent location as her calling card to let the owners know who had burgled them. The mysterious ghost became known to the locals as Chance.

A typical conversation in Balmora at this time:

My dear, whatever happened to that marvelous necklace of yours?

My dear, it was taken by Chance.

The only time when Chance disliked her hobby was when she miscalculated, and she came upon an owner or a guard. So far, she had never been caught, or even seen, but dozens of times she had uncomfortably close encounters. There came a day when she felt it was time to expand her reach. She considered going to Vivec or Gnisis, but one night at the Eight Plates, she heard a tale of the Heran Ancestral Tomb, an ancient tomb filled with traps and possessing hundreds of years of the Heran family treasures.

The idea of breaking the spell of the Heran Tomb and gaining the fortune within appealed to Chance, but facing the guardians was outside of her experience. While she was considering her options, she saw Ulstyr Moresby sitting at a table nearby, by himself as usual. He was huge brute of a Breton who had a reputation as a gentle eccentric, a great warrior who had gone mad and paid more attention to the voices in his head than to the world around him.

If she must have a partner in this enterprise, Chance decided, this man would be perfect. He would not demand or understand the concept of getting an equal share of the booty. If worse came to worse, he would not be missed if the inhabitants of the Heran Tomb were too much for him. Or if Chance found his company tiresome and elected to leave him behind.

Ulstyr, I don't think we've ever met, but my name is Minevah, she said, approaching the table. I'm fancying a trip to the Heran Ancestral Tomb. If you think you could handle the monsters, I could take care of unlocking doors and popping traps. What do you think?

The Breton took a moment to reply, as if considering the counsel of the voices in his head. Finally he nodded his head in the affirmative, mumbling, Yes, yes, yes, prop a rock, hot steel. Chitin. Walls beyond doors. Fifty-three. Two months and back.

Splendid, said Chance, not the least put off by his rambling. We'll leave early tomorrow.

When Chance met Ulstyr the next morning, he was wearing chitin armor and had armed himself with an unusual blade that glowed faintly of enchantment. As they began their trek, she tried to engage him in conversation, but his responses were so nonsensical that she quickly abandoned the attempts. A sudden rainstorm swelled over the plain, dousing them, but as she was wearing no armor and Ulstyr was wearing slick chitin, their progress was not impeded.

Into the dark recesses of the Heran Tomb, they delved. Her instincts had been correct -- they made very good partners.

She recognized the ancient snap-wire traps, deadfalls, and brittle backs before they were triggered, and cracked all manners of lock: simple tumbler, combination, twisted hasp, double catch, varieties from antiquity with no modern names, rusted heaps that would have been dangerous to open even if one possessed the actual key.

Ulstyr for his part slew scores of bizarre fiends, the likes of which Chance, a city girl, had never seen before. His enchanted blade's spell of fire was particularly effective against the Frost Atronachs. He even saved her when she lost her footing and nearly plummeted into a shadowy crack in the floor.

Not to hurt thyself, he said, his face showing genuine concern. There are walls beyond doors and fifty-three. Drain ring. Two months and back. Prop a rock. Come, Mother Chance.

Chance had not been listening to much of Ulstyr's babbling, but when he said Chance, she was startled. She had introduced herself to him as Minevah. Could it be that the peasants were right, and that when mad men spoke, they were talking to the daedra prince Sheogorath who gave them advice and information beyond their ken? Or was it rather, more sensibly, that Ulstyr was merely repeating what he heard tell of in Balmora where in recent years Chance had become synonymous with lockpicking?

As the two continued on, Chance thought of Ulstyr's mumblings. He had said chitin when they met as if it had just occurred to him, and the chitin armor that he wore had proven useful. Likewise, hot steel. What could walls beyond doors mean? Or two months and back? What numbered fifty-three?

The notion that Ulstyr possessed secret knowledge about her and the tomb they were in began to unnerve Chance. She made up her mind then to abandon her companion once the treasure had been found. He had cut through the living and undead guardians of the dungeon: if she merely left by the path they had entered, she would be safe without a defender.

One phrase he said made perfect sense to her: drain ring. At one of the manors in Balmora, she had picked up a ring purely because she thought it was pretty. It was not until later that she discovered that it could be used to sap other people's vitality. Could Ulstyr be aware of this? Would he be taken by surprise if she used it on him?

She formulated her plan on how best to desert the Breton as they continued down the hall. Abruptly the passage ended with a large metal door, secured by a golden lock. Using her pick, Chance snapped away the two tumblers and bolt, and swung the door open. The treasure of the Heran Tomb was within.

Chance quietly slipped her glove off her hand, exposing the ring as she stepped into the room. There were fifty-three bags of gold within. As she turned, the door closed between her and the Breton. On her side, it did not resemble a door anymore, but a wall. Walls beyond doors.

For many days, Chance screamed and screamed, as she tried to find a way out of the room. For some days after that, she listened dully to the laughter of Sheogorath within her own head. Two months later, when Ulstyr returned, she was dead. He used a rock to prop open the door and remove the gold.

BOOKNAMEBookSkill_Sneak3MODLm\Text_Octavo_05.nifFNAMAzura and the BoxBKDT@@ITEXm\Tx_book_04.tgaTEXT

Azura and the Box
Ancient Tales of the Dwemer, Part XI
By Marobar Sul



Nchylbar had enjoyed an adventurous youth, but had grown to be a very wise, very old Dwemer who spent his life searching for the truth and dispelling superstitions. He invented much and created many theorems and logic structures that bore his name. But much of the world still puzzled him, and nothing was a greater enigma to him that the nature of the Aedra and Daedra. Over the course of his research, he came to the conclusion that many of the Gods were entirely fabricated by man and mer.

Nothing, however, was a greater question to Nchylbar than the limits of divine power. Were the Greater Beings the masters of the entire world, or did the humbler creatures have the strength to forge their own destinies? As Nchylbar found himself nearing the end of his life, he felt he must understand this last basic truth.

Among the sage's acquaintances was a holy Chimer priest named Athynic. When the priest was visiting Bthalag-Zturamz, Nchylbar told him what he intended to do to find the nature of divine power. Athynic was terrified and pleaded with his friend not to break this great mystery, but Nchylbar was resolute. Finally, the priest agreed to assist out of love for his friend, though he feared the results of this blasphemy.

Athynic summoned Azura. After the usual rituals by which the priest declared his faith in her powers and Azura agreed to do no harm to him, Nchylbar and a dozen of his students entered the summoning chamber, carrying with them a large box.

As we see you in our land, Azura, you are the Goddess of the Dusk and Dawn and all the mysteries therein, said Nchylbar, trying to appear as kindly and obsequious as he could be. It is said that your knowledge is absolute.

So it is, smiled the Daedra.

You would know, for example, what is in this wooden box, said Nchylbar.

Azura turned to Athynic, her brow furrowed. The priest was quick to explain, Goddess, this Dwemer is a very wise and respected man. Believe me, please, the intention is not to mock your greatness, but to demonstrate it to this scientist and to the rest of his skeptical race. I have tried to explain your power to him, but his philosophy is such that he must see it demonstrated.

If I am to demonstrate my might in a way to bring the Dwemer race to understanding, it might have been a more impressive feat you would have me do, growled Azura, and turned to look Nchylbar in the eyes. There is a red-petalled flower in the box.

Nchylbar did not smile or frown. He simply opened the box and revealed to all that it was empty.

When the students turned to look to Azura, she was gone. Only Athynic had seen the Goddess's expression before she vanished, and he could not speak, he was trembling so. A curse had fallen, he knew that truly, but even crueler was the knowledge of divine power that had been demonstrated. Nchylbar also looked pale, uncertain on his feet, but his face shone with not fear, but bliss. The smile of a Dwemer finding evidence for a truth only suspected.

Two of his students supported him, and two more supported the priest as they left the chamber.

I have studied very much over the years, performed countless experiments, taught myself a thousand languages, and yet the skill that has taught me the finally truth is the one that I learned when I was but a poor, young man, trying only to have enough gold to eat, whispered the sage.

As he was escorted up the stairs to his bed, a red flower petal fell from the sleeve of his voluminous robe. Nchylbar died that night, a portrait of peace that comes from contented knowledge.

Publisher's Note:

This is another tale whose origin is unmistakably Dwemer. Again, the words of some Aldmeris translations are quite different, but the essence of the story is the same. The Dunmer have a similar tale about Nchylbar, but in the Dunmer version, Azura recognizes the trick and refuses to answer the question. She slays the Dwemer present for their skepticism and curses the Dunmer for blasphemy.

In the Aldmeris versions, Azura is tricked not by an empty box, but by a box containing a sphere which somehow becomes a flat square. Of course the Aldmeris versions, being a few steps closer to the original Dwemer, are much more difficult to understand. Perhaps this "stage magic" explanation was added by Gor Felim because of Felim's own experience with such tricks in his plays when a mage was not available.

"Marobar Sul" left even the character of Nchylbar alone, and he represents many "Dwemer" virtues. His skepticism, while not nearly as absolute as in the Aldmeris version, is celebrated even though it brings a curse upon the Dwemer and the unnamed House of the poor priest.

Whatever the true nature of the Gods, and how right or wrong the Dwemer were about them, this tale might explain why the dwarves vanished from the face of Tamriel. Though Nchylbar and his kind may not have intended to mock the Aedra and Daedra, their skepticism certainly offended the Divine Orders.

BOOK4NAMEBookSkill_Acrobatics3MODLm\text_octavo_01.nifFNAMA Dance in Fire, Chapter 4BKDT@@ITEXm\tx_octavo_01.tgaTEXT^4

A Dance in Fire, Chapter 4
by Waughin Jarth



Eighteen Bosmeri and one Cyrodilic former senior clerk for an Imperial building commission trudged through the jungle westward from the Xylo River to the ancient village of Vindisi. For Decumus Scotti, the jungle was hostile, unfamiliar ground. The enormous vermiculated trees filled the bright morning with darkness, and resembled nothing so much as grasping claws, bent on impeding their progress. Even the fronds of the low plants quivered with malevolent energy. What was worse, he was not alone in his anxiety. His fellow travelers, the natives who had survived the Khajiit attacks on the villages of Grenos and Athay, wore faces of undisguised fear.

There was something sentient in the jungle, and not merely the mad but benevolent indigenous spirits. In his peripheral vision, Scotti could see the shadows of the Khajiiti following the refugees, leaping from tree to tree. When he turned to face them, the lithe forms vanished into the gloom as if they had never been there. But he knew he had seen them. And the Bosmeri saw them too, and quickened their pace.

After eighteen hours, bitten raw by insects, scratched by a thousand thorns, they emerged into a valley clearing. It was night, but a row of blazing torches greeted them, illuminating the leather-wrought tents and jumbled stones of the hamlet of Vindisi. At the end of the valley, the torches marked a sacred site, a gnarled bower of trees pressed closed together to form a temple. Wordlessly, the Bosmeri walked the torch arcade toward the trees. Scotti followed them. When they reached the solid mass of living wood with only one gaping portal, Scotti could see a dim blue light glowing within. A low sonorous moan from a hundred voices echoed within. The Bosmeri maiden he had been following held out her hand, stopping him.

You do not understand, but no outsider, not even a friend may enter, she said. This is a holy place.

Scotti nodded, and watched the refugees march into the temple, heads bowed. Their voices joined with the ones within. When the last wood elf had gone inside, Scotti turned his attention back to the village. There must be food to be had somewhere. A tendril of smoke and a faint whiff of roasting venison beyond the torchlight led him.

They were five Cyrodiils, two Bretons, and a Nord, the group gathered around a campfire of glowing white stones, pulling steaming strips of meat from the cadaver of a great stag. At Scotti's approach, they rose up, all but the Nord who was distracted by his hunk of animal flesh.

Good evening, sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if I might have a little something to eat. I'm afraid I'm rather hungry, after walking all day with some refugees from Grenos and Athay.

They bade him to sit down and eat, and introduced themselves.

So the war's back on, it seems, said Scotti amiably.

Best thing for these effete do-nothings, replied the Nord in between bites. I've never seen such a lazy culture. Now they've got the Khajiiti striking them on land, and the high elves at sea. If there's any province that deserves a little distress, it's damnable Valenwood.

I don't see how they're so offensive to you, laughed one of the Bretons.

They're congenital thieves, even worse than the Khajiiti because they are so blessed meek in their aggression, the Nord spat out a gob of fat which sizzled on the hot stones of the fire. They spread their forests into territory that doesn't belong to them, slowly infiltrating their neighbors, and they're puzzled when Elsweyr shoves back at them. They're all villains of the worst order.

What are you doing here? asked Scotti.

I'm a diplomat from the court of Jehenna, muttered the Nord, returning to his food.

What about you, what are you doing here? asked one of the Cyrodiils.

I work for Lord Atrius's building commission in the Imperial City, said Scotti. One of my former colleagues suggested that I come down to Valenwood. He said the war was over, and I could contract a great deal of business for my firm rebuilding what was lost. One disaster after another, and I've lost all my money, I'm in the middle of a rekindling of war, and I cannot find my former colleague.

Your former colleague, murmured another of the Cyrodiils, who had introduced himself as Reglius. He wasn't by any chance named Liodes Jurus, was he?

You know him?

He lured me down to Valenwood in nearly the exact same circumstances, smiled Reglius, grimly. I worked for your employer's competitor, Lord Vanech's men, where Liodes Jurus also formerly worked. He wrote to me, asking that I represent an Imperial building commission and contract some post-war construction. I had just been released from my employment, and I thought that if I brought some new business, I could have my job back. Jurus and I met in Athay, and he said he was going to arrange a very lucrative meeting with the Silvenar.

Scotti was stunned: Where is he now?

I'm no theologian, so I couldn't say, Reglius shrugged. He's dead. When the Khajiiti attacked Athay, they began by torching the harbor where Jurus was readying his boat. Or, I should say, my boat since it was purchased with the gold I brought. By the time we were even aware of what was happening enough to flee, everything by the water was ash. The Khajiiti may be animals, but they know how to arrange an attack.

I think they followed us through the jungle to Vindisi, said Scotti nervously. There was definitely a group of something jumping along the treetops.

Probably one of the monkey folk, snorted the Nord. Nothing to be concerned about.

When we first came to Vindisi and the Bosmeri all entered that tree, they were furious, whispering something about unleashing an ancient terror on their enemies, the Breton shivered, remembering. They've been there ever since, for over a day and a half now. If you want something to be afraid of, that's the direction to look.

The other Breton, who was a representative of the Daggerfall Mages Guild, was staring off into the darkness while his fellow provincial spoke. Maybe. But there's something in the jungle too, right on the edge of the village, looking in.

More refugees maybe? asked Scotti, trying to keep the alarm out his voice.

Not unless they're traveling through the trees now, whispered the wizard. The Nord and one of the Cyrodiils grabbed a long tarp of wet leather and pulled it across the fire, instantly extinguishing it without so much as a sizzle. Now Scotti could see the intruders, their elliptical yellow eyes and long cruel blades catching the torchlight. He froze with fear, praying that he too was not so visible to them.

He felt something bump against his back, and gasped.

Reglius's voice hissed from up above: Be quiet for Mara's sake and climb up here.

Scotti grabbed hold of the knotted double-vine that hung down from a tall tree at the edge of the dead campfire. He scrambled up it as quickly as he could, holding his breath lest any grunt of exertion escape him. At the top of the vine, high above the village, was an abandoned nest from some great bird in a trident-shaped branch. As soon as Scotti had pulled himself into the soft, fragrant straw, Reglius pulled up the vine. No one else was there, and when Scotti looked down, he could see no one below. No one, that is except the Khajiiti, slowly moving toward the glow of the temple tree.

Thank you, whispered Scotti, deeply touched that a competitor had helped him. He turned away from the village, and saw that the tree's upper branches brushed against the mossy rock walls that surrounded the valley below. How are you at climbing?

You're mad, said Reglius under his breath. We should stay here until they leave.

If they burn Vindisi like they did Athay and Grenos, we'll be dead sure as if we were on the ground, Scotti began the slow careful climb up the tree, testing each branch. Can you see what they're doing?

I can't really tell, Reglius stared down into the gloom. They're at the front of the temple. I think they also have ... it looks like long ropes, trailing off behind them, off into the pass.

Scotti crawled onto the strongest branch that pointed toward the wet, rocky face of the cliff. It was not a far jump at all. So close, in fact, that he could smell the moisture and feel the coolness of the stone. But it was a jump nevertheless, and in his history as a clerk, he had never before leapt from a tree a hundred feet off the ground to a sheer rock. He pictured in his mind's eye the shadows that had pursued him through the jungle from the heights above. How their legs coiled to spring, how their arms snapped forward in an elegant fluid motion to grasp. He leapt.

His hands grappled for rock, but long thick cords of moss were more accessible. He held hard, but when he tried to plant his feet forward, they slipped up skyward. For a few seconds, he found himself upside down before he managed to pull himself into a more conventional position. There was a narrow outcropping jutting out of the cliff where he could stand and finally exhale.

Reglius. Reglius. Reglius, Scotti did not dare to call out. In a minute, there was a shaking of branches, and Lord Vanech's man emerged. First his satchel, then his head, then the rest of him. Scotti started to whisper something, but Reglius shook his head violently and pointed downward. One of the Khajiiti was at the base of the tree, peering at the remains of the campfire.

Reglius awkwardly tried to balance himself on the branch, but as strong as it was it was exceedingly difficult with only one free hand. Scotti cupped his palms and then pointed at the satchel. It seemed to pain Reglius to let it out of his grasp, but he relented and tossed it to Scotti.

There was a small, almost invisible hole in the bag, and when Scotti caught it, a single gold coin dropped out. It rang as it bounced against the rock wall on the descent, a high soft sound that seemed like the loudest alarm Scotti had ever heard.

Then many things happened very quickly.

The Cathay-Raht at the base of the tree looked up and gave a loud wail. The other Khajiiti followed in chorus, as the cat below crouched down and then sprung up into the lower branches. Reglius saw it below him, climbing up with impossible dexterity, and panicked. Even before he jumped, Scotti could tell that he was going to fall. With a cry, Reglius the Clerk plunged to the ground, breaking his neck on impact.

A flash of white fire erupted from every crevice of the temple, and the moan of the Bosmeri prayer changed into something terrible and otherworldly. The climbing Cathay-Raht stopped and stared.

Keirgo, it gasped. The Wild Hunt.

It was as if a crack in reality had opened wide. A flood of horrific beasts, tentacled toads, insects of armor and spine, gelatinous serpents, vaporous beings with the face of gods, all poured forth from the great hollow tree, blind with fury. They tore the Khajiiti in front of the temple to pieces. All the other cats fled for the jungle, but as they did so, they began pulling on the ropes they carried. In a few seconds time, the entire village of Vindisi was boiling with the lunatic apparitions of the Wild Hunt.

Over the babbling, barking, howling horde, Scotti heard the Cyrodiils in hiding cry out as they were devoured. The Nord too was found and eaten, and both Bretons. The wizard had turned himself invisible, but the swarm did not rely on their sight. The tree the Cathay-Raht was in began to sway and rock from the impossible violence beneath it. Scotti looked at the Khajiiti's fear-struck eyes, and held out one of the cords of moss.

The cat's face showed its pitiful gratitude as it leapt for the vine. It didn't have time to entirely replace that expression when Scotti pulled back the cord, and watched it fall. The Hunt consumed it to the bone before it struck the ground.

Scotti's own jump up to the next outcropping of rock was immeasurably more successful. From there, he pulled himself to the top of the cliff and was able to look down into the chaos that had been the village of Vindisi. The Hunt's mass had grown and began to spill out through the pass out of the valley, pursuing the fleeing Khajiiti. It was then that the madness truly began.

In the moons' light, from Scotti's vantage, he could see where the Khajiiti had attached their ropes. With a thunderous boom, an avalanche of boulders poured over the pass. When the dust cleared, he saw that the valley had been sealed. The Wild Hunt had nowhere to turn but on itself.

Scotti turned his head, unable to bear to look at the cannibalistic orgy. The night jungle stood before him, a web of wood. He slung Reglius's satchel over his shoulder, and entered.

BOOK>#NAMEBookSkill_Light Armor2MODLm\Text_Octavo_02.NIFFNAMIce and ChitonBKDT@@EITEXm\Tx_octavo_02.tgaTEXT"

Ice and Chitin
By Pletius Spatec



The tale dates to the year 855 of the Second Era, after General Talos had taken the name Tiber Septim and begun his conquest of Tamriel. One of his commanding officers, Beatia of Ylliolos, had been surprised in an ambush while returning from a meeting with the Emperor. She and her personal guard of five soldiers barely escaped, and were separated from their army. They fled across the desolate, sleet-painted rocky cliffs by foot. The attack had been so sudden, they had not even the time to don armor or get to their horses.

If we can get to the Gorvigh Ridge, hollered Lieutenant Ascutus, gesturing toward a peak off in the mist, his voice barely discernible over the wind. We can meet the legion you stationed in Porhnak.

Beatia looked across the craggy landscape, through the windswept hoary trees, and shook her head: Not that way. We'll be struck down before we make it halfway to the mountain. You can see their horses' breath through the trees.

She directed her guard toward a ruined old keep on the frozen isthmus of Nerone, across the bay from Gorvigh Ridge. Jutting out on a promontory of rock, it was like many other abandoned castles in northern Skyrim, remnants of Reman Cyrodiil's protective shield against the continent of Akavir. As they reached their destination and made a fire, they could hear the army of the warchiefs of Danstrar behind them, making camp on the land southwest, blocking the only escape but the sea. The soldiers assessed the stock of the keep while Beatia looked out to the fog-veiled water through the casements of the ruin.

She threw a stone, watching it skip across the ice trailing puffs of mist before it disappeared with a splash into a crack in the surface.

No food or weaponry to be found, commander, Lieutenant Ascutus reported. There's a pile of armor in storage, but it's definitely taken on the elements over the years. I don't know if it's salvageable at all.

We won't last long here, Beatia replied. The Nords know that we'll be vulnerable when night falls, and this old rock won't hold them off. If there's anything in the keep we can use, find it. We have to make it across the ice floe to the Ridge.

After a few minutes of searching and matching pieces, the guards presented two very grimy, scuffed and cracked suits of chitin armor. Even the least proud of the adventurers and pirates who had looted the castle over the years had thought the shells of chitin beneath their notice. The soldiers did not dare to clean them: the dust looked to be the only adhesive holding them together.

They won't offer us much protection, just slow us down, grimaced Ascutus. If we run across the ice as soon as it gets dark--

Anyone who can plan and execute an ambush like the warchiefs of Danstrar will be expecting that. We need to move quickly, now, before they're any closer. Beatia drew a map of the bay in the dust, and then a semicircular path across the water, an arc stretching from the castle to the Gorvigh Ridge. The men should go the long way across the bay like so. The ice is thick there a ways from the shoreline, and there are a lot of rocks for cover.

You're not staying behind to hold the castle!

Of course not, Beatia shook her head and drew a straight line from the castle to the closest shore across the Bay. I'll take one of the chitin suits, and try to cross the water here. If you don't see or hear me when you've made it to land, don't wait -- just get to Porhnak.

Lieutenant Ascutus tried to dissuade his commander, but he knew that she was would never order one of her men to perform the suicidal act of diversion, that all would die before they reached Gorvigh Ridge if the warlords' army was not distracted. He could find only one way to honor his duty to protect his commanding officer. It was not easy convincing Commander Beatia that he should accompany her, but at last, she relented.

The sun hung low but still cast a diffused glow, illuminating the snow with a ghostly light, when the five men and one woman slipped through the boulders beneath the castle to the water's frozen edge. Beatia and Ascutus moved carefully and precisely, painfully aware of each dull crunch of chitin against stone. At their commander's signal, the four unarmored men dashed towards the north across the ice.

When her men had reached the first fragment of cover, a spiral of stone jutting a few yards from the base of the promontory, Beatia turned to listen for the sound of the army above. Nothing but silence. They were still unseen. Ascutus nodded, his eyes through the helm showing no fear. The commander and her lieutenant stepped onto the ice and began to run.

When Beatia had surveyed the bay from the castle ramparts, the crossing closest to shore had seemed like a vast, featureless plane of white. Now that she was down on the ice, it was even more flat and stark: the sheet of mist rose only up their ankles, but it billowed up at their approach like the hand of nature itself was pointing out their presence to their enemies. They were utterly exposed. It came almost as a relief when Beatia heard one of the warchiefs' scouts whistle a signal to his masters.

They didn't have to turn around to see if the army was coming. The sound of galloping hoofs and the crash of trees giving way was very clear over the whistling wind.

Beatia wished she could risk a glance to the north to see if her men were hidden from view, but she didn't dare. She could hear Ascutus running to her right, keeping pace, breathing hard. He was used to wearing heavier armor, but the chitin joints were so brittle and tight from years of disuse, it was all he could do to bend them.

The rocky shore to the Ridge still looked at eternity away when Beatia felt and heard the first volley of arrows. Most struck the ice at their feet with sharp cracking sounds, but a few nearly found home, ricocheting off their backs. She silently offered a prayer of thanks to whatever anonymous shellsmith, now long dead, had crafted the armor. They continued to run, as the first rain of arrows was quickly followed by a second and a third.

Thank Stendarr, Ascutus gasped. If there was only leather in the keep, we'd be pierced through and through. Now if only it weren't... so rigid...

Beatia felt her own armor joints begin to set, her knees and hips finding more and more resistance with every step. There could be no denying it: they were drawing closer toward the shore, but they were running much more slowly. She heard the first dreadful galloping crunch of the army charging across the floe toward them. The riders were cautious on the slippery ice, not driving their horses at full speed, but Beatia knew that they would be upon the two of them soon.

The old chitin armor could withstand the bite of a few arrows, but not a lance driven with the force of a galloping horse. The only great unknown was time.

The thunder of beating hooves was deafening behind them when Ascutus and Beatia reached the edge of the shore. The giant, jagged stones that strung around the beach blockaded the approach. Beneath their feet, the ice sighed and crackled. They could not stand still, run forward, nor run back. Straining against the tired metal in the armor joints, they took two bounds forward and flew at the boulders.

The first landing on the ice sounded an explosive crack. When they rose for the final jump, it was on a wave of water so cold it felt like fire through the thin armor. Ascutus's right hand found purchase in a deep fissure. Beatia gripped with both hands, but her boulder was slick with frost. Faces pressed to the stone, they could not turn to face the army behind them.

But they heard the ice splintering, and the soldiers cry out in terror for just an instant. Then there was no sound but the whining of the wind and the purring lap of the water. A moment later, there were footsteps on the cliff above.

The four guardsmen had crossed the bay. There were two to pull Beatia up from the face of the boulder, and another two for Ascutus. They strained and swore at the weight, but finally they had their commander and her lieutenant safely on the edge of Gorvigh Ridge.

By Mara, that's heavy for light armor.

Yes, smiled Beatia wearily, looking back over the empty broken ice floe, the cracks radiating from the parallel paths she and Ascutus had run. But sometimes that's good.

BOOKNAMEbookskill_hand to hand3MODLm\Text_Octavo_05.nifFNAMCharwich-Koniinge, Volume 2BKDT@@,ITEXm\Tx_book_04.tgaTEXT

The Charwich-Koniinge Letters, Book II
3 Last Seed, 3E 411
Tel Aruhn, Morrowind

My Good Friend Charwich,

I only just last week received your letter dated 6 Sun's Height, addressed to me in Sadrith Mora. I did not know how to reach you before to tell you of my progress finding Hadwaf Neithwyr, so I send this to you now care of the lady you mentioned in your letter, the Lady Elysbetta Moorling of Wayrest. I hope that if you have left her palace, she will know where you've gone and can send this to you. And I hope further that you receive it in a timelier manner that I received your letter. It is essential that I hear from you soon so we may coordinate our next course of action.

My adventures here have two acts, one before I received your letter, and one immediately after. While you searched for the elusive possessor of Azura's Star in his homeland to the west, I searched for him here where we understood he conjured up the Daedra Prince and received from her the artifact.

Like you, I had little difficulty finding people who had heard of or even knew Neithwyr. In fact, not long after we parted company and you left for the Iliac Bay, I met someone who knew where he went to perform the ceremony, so I left at once to come here to Tel Aruhn. It took some time to locate my contact, for he is a Dissident Priest named Minerath. The Temple and Tribunal, the real powers of Morrowind, tend to frown on his Order, and while they haven't begun so much of crusade to stamp them out, there are certainly rumors that they will soon. This tends to make priests like Minerath skittish and paranoid. Difficult people to set appointments with.

Finally I was told that he would be willing to talk to me at the Plot and Plaster, a tiny tavern without even a room to rent. Downstairs, there were several cloaked men crammed around the tavern's only table, and they searched me to see if I had any weaponry. Of course, I hadn't. You know that isn't my preferred method of doing business.

When it decided that I was harmless, one of the cloaked figures revealed himself to be Minerath. I paid him the gold I promised and asked him what he knew about Hadwaf Neithwyr. He remembered him well enough, saying that after he received the Star, the lad intended to return to High Rock. It seemed he had unfinished business there, presumably of a violent nature, which Azura's Star would facilitate. He had no other information, and I did not know what else to ask.

We parted company and I waited for your letter, hoping you had found Neithwyr and perhaps even the Star. I confess that as I lingered in Morrowind and never heard from you, I began to have doubts about your character. You'll forgive me for saying so, but I began to fear that you had taken the artifact for yourself. In fact, I was making plans to come to High Rock myself when your letter came at last.

The tale of your adventure in the cemetery at Grimtry Garden, and the information you gathered from the lycanthropic caretaker inspired me to have another meeting with Minerath. Thus began the second act of my story.

I returned to the Pot and Plaster, reasoning that the priest must frequent that area of the city to feel so comfortable setting clandestine meetings there. It took some time searching, but I finally found him, and as luck would have it, he was alone. I called his name, and he quickly drew me to a dark alleyway, nervous that we would be seen by a Temple ordinator.

It is a rare and beautiful thing when a victim insists on dragging his killer to a remote location.

I began at once asking about this fellow you mentioned, Neithwyr's mysterious patron Baliasir. He denied ever having heard the name. We were still in that easy, fairly conversational state when I attacked the priest. Of course, he was completely taken by surprise. In some ways, that can be more effective than an ambush from behind. No matter how many times I've done it, no one ever expected the friendly man they're talking to grip them by the neck.

I pressed hard against my favorite spot in the soft part of the throat, just below the thyroid cartilage, and it took him too long to react to my lunge and try pushing back. He began to lose consciousness, and I whispered that if I released my grip a little so he could talk and breath, but he tried to call for help, I would snap his neck. He nodded, and I relaxed the pressure, just a bit.

I asked him again about Baliasir, and he shook his head, insisting that he had never heard the name. As frightened as he was, it seemed most likely that he was telling the truth, so I asked him more generally if he knew anyone else who might know something about Hadwaf Neithwyr. He told me that there was a woman present also during the ceremony, someone he introduced as his sister.

I remembered then the part of your letter about seeing the grave of Neithwyr's sister, Peryra. When I mentioned the name to the priest he nodded frantically, but I could see that the interrogation had reached an ending. There is, after all, something about being throttled that causes a man to answer yes to every question. I snapped Minerath's neck, and returned home.

So now I'm again unsure how to proceed. I've made several more inquiries and several of the same people who met Neithwyr remember him being with a woman. A few recall him saying that she was his sister. One or two believe they remember her name as being Peryra, though they're not certain. No one, however, has heard of anyone named Baliasir.

If I do not hear word from you in response to this in the next couple of weeks, I will come to High Rock, because it's there that most people believe Neithwyr returned. I will only stay here long enough to see if there are other inquiries I can make only in Morrowind to bring us closer to our goal of recovering Azura's Star.

Your Friend,

Koniinge

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@<,ITEXc\tx_pants_extrav_2.tgaINDXBNAMc_m_pants_extrav_2_gINDXBNAMc_m_pants_extrav_2_aINDXBNAMc_m_pants_extrav_2_ulINDXBNAMc_m_pants_extrav_2_ulINDXBNAMc_m_pants_extrav_2_kINDXBNAMc_m_pants_extrav_2_kINDXBNAMc_m_pants_extrav_2_aCLOTNAMEextravagant_shirt_01MODLc\C_M_Shirt_extrav_1_GND.NIFFNAMExtravagant ShirtCTDT @<,ITEXc\Tx_Shirt_extrav01.tgaINDXBNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_1_cINDXBNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_1_uaINDX BNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_1_uaINDX BNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_1_faINDX BNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_1_faINDX BNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_1_wINDXBNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_1_wCLOTNAMEextravagant_shirt_02MODLc\C_M_Shirt_Extrav_2_GND.NIFFNAMExtravagant ShirtCTDT @<,ITEXc\tx_shirt_extrav02.tgaINDXBNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_2_cINDXBNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_2_uaINDX BNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_2_uaINDX BNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_2_faINDX BNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_2_faINDX BNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_2_wINDXBNAMc_m_shirt_extrav_2_wCLOTNAMEextravagant_skirt_01MODLc\C_Skirt_extravagant_1GND.NIFFNAMExtravagant SkirtCTDT 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@@PITEXc\Tx_Robe_exquisite_1.tgaINDXBNAMc_m_robe_exquisite_1INDXINDXCLOTNAMEextravagant_glove_left_01MODLc\c_glove_extravagant1_GND.NIFFNAMExtravagant Left GloveCTDT ?(ITEXc\tx_glove_extravagant_1.tgaINDXBNAMc_glove_extravagant1INDX CLOTNAMEextravagant_glove_right_01MODLc\c_glove_extravagant1_GND.NIFFNAMExtravagant Right GloveCTDT ?(ITEXc\tx_glove_extravagant_1.tgaINDXBNAMc_glove_extravagant1INDXCLOTNAMEexpensive_ring_03MODLc\C_Ring_expensive_3.NIFFNAMExpensive RingCTDT =ITEXc\tx_ring_expensive03.tgaCLOTNAMEexquisite_ring_02MODLc\C_Ring_exquisite_1.NIFFNAMExquisite RingCTDT =ITEXc\tx_ring_exquisite01.tgaCLOTNAMEextravagant_amulet_01MODLc\Amulet_Extravagant_1.NIFFNAMExtravagant Sapphire AmuletCTDT ?xXITEXc\tx_amulet_extrav1.tgaCLOTNAMEextravagant_amulet_02MODLc\Amulet_Extravagant_2.NIFFNAMExtravagant Ruby AmuletCTDT ?xXITEXc\tx_amulet_extrav2.tgaALCHNAMEPotion_Cyro_Whiskey_01MODLn\Potion_Cyro_whiskey_01.NIFTEXTn\Tx_cyro_whiskey_01.tgaFNAMFlinALDT ?dENAMO<ENAMO<ALCHNAMEpotion_cyro_brandy_01MODLn\Potion_Cyro_brandy_01.NIFTEXTn\Tx_cyro_brandy_01.tgaFNAMCyrodiilic BrandyALDT ?dENAMO<ENAMO<ALCHNAMEpotion_local_liquor_01MODLn\Potion_Local_liquor_01.NIFTEXTn\Tx_local_liquor_01.tgaFNAMSujammaALDT @@ENAMO<22ENAM<22INGRNAMEfood_kwama_egg_01MODLf\Food_kwama_egg_01.NIFFNAMSmall Kwama EggIRDT8?MITEXm\Tx_food_kwama_egg_01.tgaINGRNAMEingred_diamond_01MODLn\Ingred_diamond_01.NIFFNAMDiamondIRDT8L>'DBITEXn\Tx_diamond.tgaINGRNAMEingred_emerald_01MODLn\Ingred_emerald_01.NIFFNAMEmeraldIRDT8L>QKITEXn\Tx_emerald.tgaINGRNAMEingred_pearl_01MODLn\Ingred_pearl_01.NIFFNAMPearlIRDT8L>d9^ITEXn\Tx_pearl.tgaINGRNAMEingred_ruby_01MODLn\Ingred_ruby_01.NIFFNAMRubyIRDT8L>JITEXn\Tx_ruby.tgaINGRNAMEingred_black_lichen_01MODLn\Ingred_Black_Lichen_01.nifFNAM Black LichenIRDT8=[HITEXn\Tx_black_lichen_01.tgaINGRNAMEingred_bonemeal_01MODLn\Ingred_Blonemeal_01.nifFNAM BonemealIRDT8L>J;ITEXn\Tx_bonemeal_01.tgaINGRNAMEingred_raw_glass_01MODLn\Ingred_Raw_Glass_01.nifFNAM 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RetortAADT?@@@ITEXm\Tx_retort_04.tgaCONTNAMEflora_rm_scathecraw_02MODLf\Flora_RM_scathecraw_02.NIFFNAMScathecraw PlantCNDTFLAG NPCO$random_scathecrawACTI[NAMEactive_de_p_bed_04MODLf\Active_De_Bed_04.NIFFNAMBedSCRI Bed_StandardACTI\NAMEactive_de_pr_bed_07MODLf\Active_De_Bed_07.NIFFNAMBedSCRI Bed_StandardMISC}NAMEmisc_de_goblet_04MODLm\Misc_De_Goblet_04.NIFFNAMGobletMCDT ?ITEXm\Misc_De_Goblet_04.tgaMISC}NAMEmisc_de_goblet_06MODLm\Misc_De_Goblet_06.NIFFNAMGobletMCDT ?ITEXm\Misc_De_Goblet_06.tgaMISC}NAMEmisc_de_goblet_07MODLm\Misc_De_Goblet_07.NIFFNAMGobletMCDT ?ITEXm\Misc_De_Goblet_07.tgaMISCNAMEmisc_de_pitcher_01MODLm\Misc_De_Pitcher_01.NIFFNAMPitcherMCDT @@ITEXm\Misc_De_Pitcher_01.tgaLIGHNAMElight_com_candle_01_offMODLl\Light_Com_Candle_01.NIFFNAMIron CandlestickITEXl\Light_Com_Candle_01.tgaLHDT?xsCONT_NAMEbarrel_01_emptyMODLo\Contain_barrel_01.NIFFNAMBarrelCNDTHBFLAGMISCNAMEmisc_uni_pillow_01MODLm\Misc_Com_Pillow_01.NIFFNAMPillowMCDT ?ITEXm\Misc_Com_Pillow_01.tgaMISCNAMEmisc_de_bowl_redware_03MODLm\Misc_bowl_redware_03.NIFFNAM Redware BowlMCDT @ITEXm\Tx_bowl_redware_03.tgaMISCNAMEmisc_de_bowl_bugdesign_01MODLm\Misc_bowl_bugdesign_01.NIFFNAMDecorative BowlMCDT @ITEXm\Tx_bowl_bugdesign_01.tgaLIGHNAMElight_de_buglamp_01MODLl\Light_buglamp_01.NIFFNAM Bug LampITEXl\Tx_buglamp_01.tgaLHDT(SMISCxNAMEmisc_de_bellows10MODLm\misc_bellows10.nifFNAMBellowsMCDT @ITEXm\misc_bellows00.tgaMISCNAMEmisc_imp_silverware_plate_01MODLm\Misc_Silverware_Plate_01.NIFFNAMSilverware PlateMCDT @@ITEXm\Misc_Silverware_Plate_01.tgaMISCNAMEmisc_com_redware_vaseMODLm\Misc_Redware_Vase.NIFFNAMVaseMCDT @ITEXm\Misc_Redware_Vase.tgaMISCNAMEMisc_Imp_Silverware_Cup_01MODLm\Misc_Silverware_Cup_01.NIFFNAMSilverware CupMCDT @ ITEXm\Misc_Silverware_Cup_01.tgaMISCNAMEmisc_imp_silverware_pitcherMODLm\Misc_Silverware_Pitcher.NIFFNAMSilverware PitcherMCDT @ITEXm\Misc_Silverware_Pitcher.tgaCLOTNAMEimperial skirt_clothingMODLc\C_M_Skirt_Imperial_GND.nifFNAMImperial SkirtCTDT @ITEXa\Tx_Imperial_skirt.tgaINDXBNAMimperial skirtCONTNAMEcom_sack_01_saltrice_10MODLo\Contain_Com_Sack_01.NIFFNAMSackCNDTHBFLAGNPCO$ ingred_saltrice_01CONTNAMEcrate_01_eggsMODLo\Contain_crate_01.NIFFNAMCrateCNDTHCFLAGNPCO$food_kwama_egg_02LIGHNAMElight_de_candle_17_64MODLl\Light_De_Candle_17.NIFFNAMBrass CandlestickITEXl\Light_De_Candle_17.tgaLHDT@x@(SCONTNAMECom_Sack_02_IngredMODLo\Contain_Com_Sack_02.NIFFNAMSackCNDTHBFLAGNPCO$random_ingredientCONT NAMEbarrel_01_posMODLo\Contain_barrel_01.NIFFNAMBarrelCNDTHBFLAGNPCO$random_posNPCO$random goldNPCO$random_loot_specialNPCO$random_loot_special_marksmanCONTNAME barrel_02MODLo\contain_barrel10.nifFNAMBarrelCNDTHBFLAGNPCO$2ingred_potato_01ACTI=NAMEFurn_De_Bar_01MODLf\Furn_De_Bar_01.NIFFNAMACTI=NAMEfurn_de_bar_02MODLf\Furn_De_Bar_02.NIFFNAMACTI=NAMEFurn_De_Bar_03MODLf\Furn_De_Bar_03.NIFFNAMACTI=NAMEFurn_De_Bar_04MODLf\Furn_De_Bar_04.NIFFNAMACTI=NAMEFurn_De_Bar_05MODLf\Furn_De_Bar_05.NIFFNAMCONTcNAMEde_p_desk_01_erranilMODLo\Contain_De_Desk_01.NIFFNAMDeskCNDTBFLAGCONTNAMEde_drawers_02_mclothes4MODLo\Contain_De_Drawers_02.NIFFNAMChest of DrawersCNDTCFLAGNPCO$common_amulet_02NPCO$common_skirt_04NPCO$common_robe_02_hNPCO$common_robe_03NPCO$common_belt_02NPCO$common_shirt_01_zNPCO$common_shirt_02_hhNPCO$common_shoes_02NPCO$random_common_de_mclothes_01LIGHNAMElight_de_lantern_01_offMODLl\Light_De_Lantern_01.NIFFNAMPaper LanternITEXl\Light_De_Lantern_01.tgaLHDT@@ (#CONTNAMEcom_sack_01_chpfood5MODLo\Contain_Com_Sack_01.NIFFNAMSackCNDTHBFLAGNPCO$random_de_cheapfood_01_neCONTNAMEcom_sack_02_chpfood3MODLo\Contain_Com_Sack_02.NIFFNAM Cloth SackCNDTHBFLAGNPCO$random_de_cheapfood_01_ncCONTNAME urn_02_foodMODLo\Contain_urn_02.NIFFNAMUrnCNDTBFLAGNPCO$random_de_cheapfood_01_neCONTNAME