With the Orcs back at Dra’bul and the stronghold warned to be on alert for possible werewolves, which they were already being on alert for in the first place, my friends and I make for Silvenar (the place) by the most direct route. Which still involves almost getting lost because nothing in Valenwood is a direct route to anywhere. At least Gelur knows where we’re going.

We reach the a wayshrine outside of a town, and I light it. It’s getting late, so I plan on hopping back to Dra’bul for the night and continuing from this wayshrine in the morning, but I take a moment to explore the town first.

The name of this town is Vulkwasten. Didn’t I have a delivery or something for there? I look it up and ask around for someone named Ganwen, and find her in an inn named the Tall Trunk Tavern. I return her vase, and she’s quite distract over losing her daughter, and even more distraught when I mention the undead pumpkin eaters. I maybe didn’t need to mention that part.

There’s a shifty Khajiit in town who either does or doesn’t want us to visit the Ayleid ruin of Belarata and ask for a tour from someone named Jurak-dar. I have no idea if this is supposed to be a code phrase or what. She tells me that he sells artifacts from secret places. You know, I’m not really keen on visiting another Ayleid ruin for no good reason, except I know I’m going to visit it anyway and it’s likely this Jurak-dar needs his tail pulled out of the fire before he touches something he shouldn’t. I make a note to stop by before leaving Malabal Tor.

The local Fighters Guild branch mentions that there’s some sort of meeting scheduled for after the Silvenar’s wedding because there was no way half of them were going to make a meeting that coincides with it. I certainly would have skipped it. Just send me a memo about what I need to hit where, for fuck’s sake.

Just as I’m about to head out to the wayshrine, someone is yelling something about mammoths and a brewery. Eran is looking at me as if it’s somehow my fault that someone is now asking us to douse drunken mammoths with cold water for some reason.

“I don’t see how I could have anything to do with this,” I say, unable to hold back laughter.

“Now I’m theorizing that you’re surrounded by a chaos aura that causes weird shit to happen when you get within a mile or so, just in time to come to a head as you arrive.”

“Technically, he is blessed by Sheogorath,” Merry points out. “But I doubt even the Madgod could have been behind everything.”

As we’re convincing the drunken mammoths to return to their pen, I spot a Skyshard on a cliff overlooking the misty water far below. I can practically feel Eran’s nervousness as he makes a sharp intake of breath at the prospect of having to walk all the way around annoyingly, but I absorb it without incident.

When we get all the mammoths back, we learn that someone had broken into the brewery, possibly releasing the mammoths as a distraction. The brewery is upstairs (up tree-ramp) at the Tall Trunk Tavern, and we rush over to stop the booze thief.

Although the guy who came running to tell us about the break-in claimed that obviously the thief was a big male Orc despite not having seen anything, it turns out that it’s a young Bosmer woman and a couple of summoned scamps. According to a note she’d conveniently left nearby, her name was Firuin and she was very annoyed at her amazing talents being wasted on making booze, and she’d found someone who would truly appreciate her. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that this mysterious appreciator is probably involved with something bad.

The brewery here makes rotmeth—you know, that Bosmer booze made of meat and bug bits—and it’s traditionally served at weddings. Including the upcoming one between the Silvenar and the Green Lady. And now their wedding booze has been stolen. This is a very important mission! We must save the wedding booze!

Firuin’s note mentioned someplace called Balding Hill, where the stolen booze may or may not have been taken. The brewer (Galithar) asks us to go and see if it’s there. The other Bosmer fellow (Aphrost… Alphost… Alphrost? Whatever.), the one who had been in the brewery when it was invaded, also asks us to collect some seasonings needed to finish another batch of rotmeth. Seeing as we’ll probably have to kill every thunder bug between us and Balding Hill, that shouldn’t be a problem. Gelur just shoves the corpses into her pack whole to save time.

As we get close to the location Galithor marked on my map, we start running across loose Scamps and even an Ogrim. (Wait, do I need to capitalize those? They’re more or less intelligent beings capable of speaking, aren’t they? For that matter, am I supposed to capitalize ‘human’? I am so confused.)

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The hill in question is glowing green and probably shouldn’t be glowing green, and there’s a small camp with two leather huts and some sort of brewing equipment with a blazing fire under it heating the contents to a boil. I have no idea whether this is bad for rotmeth or not, but I’m going to assume so given how much people have been talking about keeping it chilled and her angry note mentioned making it too hot. I quickly go over to put out the fire, fail at it, and have Merry just do it with ice magic instead.

In one of the tents sits a note addressed to Firuin from one Cassia Vero who implies something about the Worm Cult and asks her to join them in the Ayleid ruin of Abamath. Was that the name of the human woman who was trying to summon an avatar of Mauloch? She didn’t exactly bother to introduce herself first.

Eran groans as he looks over the note. “Good thing we already killed them. Although I think this a new low for the Worm Cult.”

“Stealing rotmeth, no less!” Gelur says. “For shame!”

“Truly, their depravity knows no bounds,” Merry says dryly.

“How are we going to get this back?” Ilara wonders, staring at the huge vat. “This one thinks it will not fit in our packs.”

“We’ll just have to tell Galathir about it,” I say.

“Galithor,” Eran says. “His name is Galithor.”

“Gally,” I say.

“Let’s just go meet Alphrast at the Cold Cave he mentioned,” Eran says. “Judging from Firuin’s first note, Galithor was probably using a frost atronach to chill the drinks.”

“Yes, let’s make sure the town’s ice box doesn’t come stomping down their homes,” I say.

Alphrast, outside the cave in question, confirms that there’s a frost atronach in there and it’s waking up and nobody knows how to rebind it, so we go in and send it back to Oblivion by repeated application of violence. While he’s disappointed at the loss of a good source of cold air, he’s relieved at not having an angry ice colossus smashing his face in.

“Might I recommend using frost runes instead?” Merry suggests. “It’s considerably safer. That’s what Altmer usually do.”

“Oh!” Alphrast says. “That sounds like a much better idea. I should have known the Altmer would have had a good way to do this. We just… had a summoner and not an enchanter, but we’ll be sure to get in contact with one now.”

We return to the Tall Trunk Tavern and inform Galithor that we found his booze and stopped it from going up in flames. He’ll have some workers go retrieve it and offers us a round of free drinks, but considering what the drinks he’s offering are made of, Gelur and I are the only ones who accept his beverages. Eran, Merry, and Ilara stick to food.

There’s an Orc sitting at one of the tables, so I go over and join him.

“Name’s Molg,” he introduces himself. “From Jathsogur, but I don’t like the shit Chief Nagoth’s been getting the clan into lately.”

“Was that his name?” I ask. “He’s dead now. We killed him.”

“We killed him,” Eran puts in. “You were too busy meeting Malacath.”

Molg blinks, and notices my ring on the hand that’s holding a mug of jagga. (No idea what it’s made from but it’s alcoholic!) “Damn, so Malacath’s got a new champion and you’re already shaking things up,” Molg says. “Though I have to ask. What happened to your tusks?”

“Funny, no one’s ever asked me that before,” I say truthfully.

Molg coughs. “Sorry, what, were you adopted or something? Or did someone marry a High Elf? I didn’t even notice until you sat down next to me that you don’t have tusks and your skin isn’t green.”

“I’ll just tell anyone else who asks that I was adopted,” I say. “It makes more sense.” I just keep chuckling and spare him the puzzlement by getting him up to speed on the current state of Orc politics in Malabal Tor.

“Well, damn,” Molg says. “Can’t say I expected the Drublog to accept a High Elf or half-blood or whatever you are as chieftain, even a champion of Malacath. You must have really impressed them. Or just killed enough of the other potential candidates…”

“I was on my way back to Dra’bul when I heard about some booze being stolen and naturally had to intervene.”

“Of course,” Molg says with a grin. “Maybe I should head back to Jathsogur now. Should be interesting times ahead.”

I take another gulp of my jagga and turn to Gelur. “What’s this stuff made of, anyway?”

“Fermented pig’s milk and honey,” Gelur says helpfully.

“Jathsogur’s going to need a new chief,” I say. “It’s not like I can run every stronghold personally. For that matter, someone ought to go squat on Abamath and keep anymore cultists from getting stupid ideas. Maybe tear down the Ayleid shit while they’re at it and build something useful out of it, like a giant awesome forge or something, I don’t know. If my travels through Valenwood have taught me anything, it’s that unattended Ayleid ruins lead to necromancers or Daedra, and that one was built on top of an Orc stronghold with a shrine to Mauloch in it, so fuck the Ayleids. I’ve only met one dead Ayleid who talked back to me and she was a bitch.”

“Why don’t you take it over yourself?” Molg asks.

“Well, I mean, I kind of already did, if you count going in there and killing a lot of cultists to be taking over. But I admittedly tend to go a lot of places and just leave behind nothing but bodies. And sometimes not even that, if they were something worth skinning or eating. Which doesn’t include cultists because we are not following the Meat Mandate.”

“Let’s please not discuss the Meat Mandate over dinner,” Eran says.

We finish our food and drinks, and head back out toward the wayshrine. There’s things that need to be hit still, but there’s only so far that we can walk in a day and I like to be around Dra’bul as much as possible right now to get my Orcs used to me.

Meanwhile, in Dra’bul, I seem to have inadvertently inspired a ‘moon sugar challenge’. Which amounts to going, “I could beat you in a fight after eating this much moon sugar!” I might be a bad influence. I have no idea where they even got the moon sugar.