There are fucking Sea Elves on the coast near Silvenar. Because of course there are.

A sailor comes into Silvenar looking for help, and of course I immediately volunteer. No sense in spoiling anyone else’s celebration when it’s something I can handle myself, after all. And by ‘myself’ I mean ‘with my friends’, since they immediately volunteer to go along as well.

“We can hardly stay and celebrate while you’re out fighting Sea Elves, you know,” Eran points out.

Seaman Henaril tells us about how the Maormer had lured his ship through a fog and captured and killed much of his crewmates. He’d escaped by jumping overboard and swimming to shore, and came up through the forest to look for help, then got chased by a werewolf halfway to Silvenar and eventually ran across some guards who killed it.

“You are one lucky mer,” I comment. “Alright, folks. Let’s move out. There’s Maormer skulls to crack.”

“Really?” Merry says. “You usually behead them, not crack their skulls.”

“It’s just an expression!” I say. “I thought it sounded Orcier.”

“You really don’t need to try to sound ‘Orcy’,” Eran points out.

“Point,” I admit.

We head for the beach without further delay. Sure enough, the shore is littered with Sea Elves, blue tents, and snake banners. At least I don’t spot any of their snake totems, which probably means they’re not doing any weird storm magic here, just killing and kidnapping people. That’s some consolation. I really didn’t need to deal with weird storm magic today.

The captive sailors are tied up all across the beach in front of different clusters of tents. The Sea Elves separated them, which just means we need to go around and kill more Sea Elves in order to get at them. Also giant snakes, because of course the Sea Elves brought giant snakes with them, or just immediately befriended whatever giant snakes might have already been here. (I run across a book somewhere that suggests they have snake-control magic.)

The first mate is locked up in a cage, and suspicious when he sees us. “Is this another Maormer trick to break me? No, I don’t think even they could come up with an illusion of a half-breed dressed like an Orc, never mind the rest of you. Well, I certainly won’t criticize your ancestry or fashion choices if you’re here to rescue me. Apologies if I caused offense.”

“None taken,” I say, chuckling as I open the cage. “Although I can’t say that I’ve seen a High Elf apologize for causing offense before.”

“It is a very foolish High Elf who insults their rescue party,” the first mate says.

“We’ve encountered some very foolish High Elves,” Gelur comments as she checks him over for injuries. “You’re good to go.”

The first mate informs us that the captain is being interrogated by the Maormer Arch-Wizard, and asks us to destroy a fleet manifest that details the Thalmor’s movements and would be very bad for pirates to have.

“Wouldn’t it be best if I just take it instead of burn it?” I ask. “It’s not like retrieving it would be any more difficult than destroying it. And more likely to not leave behind half-burned pages that could still be deciphered with them knowing it’s important…”

“Do as you see fit so long as it doesn’t fall into enemy hands.”

We cut our way over to one of the ships that had run across, the one that’s still upright and not on its side in the water and cracked down the middle. This one’s more likely to be capable of sailing again, maybe if some mages got together and pushed it off the beach at least. Provided that slamming into dry land didn’t result in any large holes in the bottom of it.

It takes more time than strictly necessary to locate the manifest, since it was disguised as an ordinary book and the Thalmor ship has entire bookcases on board. At least with five of us looking, we find it soon enough. Admittedly, that’s no thanks to me being distracted by staring at the buildings on the other side of the bay. I don’t know why I find the view so captivating.

While we were searching for that, the first mate has captured and is interrogating one of the Maormer that we hadn’t killed. (As opposed to necromantically interrogating one that we had killed.) He has learned that the Sea Elves have taken the captain into a nearby cave with the pleasant-sounding name of Ogrim’s Yawn.

Outside the cave, I find a copy of a book titled Guylaine’s Dwemer Architecture sitting on a crate. That’s bound to be entertaining. Entertainingly wrong or nonsensical, but entertaining. I toss it into my pack to read later.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

The Sea Elves are doing some weird magic on the captain to try to drain memories into a magic rock or something. It seems like an inefficient way to interrogate someone. I don’t care too much about the details beyond knowing what I need to hit. In this case, the Sea Elves and their evil magic rock. It’s not like I’m about to give them advice on more effective interrogation techniques.

The wizard has been tormenting the captain with terrible images of dismay and failure. It takes her a bit to fully come back to reality once I’ve smashed the magic rock holding her in place, and a bit more to explain to her that some of her crew survived and that she didn’t betray the Dominion and let Sea Elves conquer Valenwood and Summerset. (I can’t imagine that trying to invade the interior of Valenwood would go well for them, in any case. They’d probably get eaten by the first strangler vine they stumbled across.)

“You should be able to get to Silvenar safely from here, if there aren’t anymore werewolves roaming around,” I say. “We’re going to head back down to the beach and clear out the rest of the Sea Elves.”

“Werewolves!?” the captain exclaims. “It never rains but pours, it seems. We’ll be careful.”

“You have no idea,” Eran says.

We part ways with the sailors and get to work on removing the Maormer infestation. I’m happy to kill every damned Sea Elf I see. If they ever started acting like civilized people and not just pirates and raiders, I might reconsider, but as it is, the only Sea Elves I’ve thus far encountered who weren’t immediately hostile didn’t take very long before becoming hostile.

“So, I have an idea for how to deal with the Maormer,” I say.

“Kill them all?” Eran offers.

“They just keep coming,” I say. “We need them to stop coming.”

“I must hear this brilliant idea,” Merry says.

“We get a portal mage to send a logging crew to Pyandonea,” I say.

“There has to be some reason why people rarely use long-range portals…” Eran says. “I just have no idea what it is.”

“Precise targeting,” Merry says. “And magicka requirements. Most mages can’t sustain a portal long enough to march an entire army through to the other side of Tamriel, as convenient as that might make warfare.”

“We do have a surplus of magic Ayleid rocks, though,” I say. “Would that help?”

“It… might,” Merry says. “If we knew where exactly Pyandonea is. It is not my field of expertise, though. We might speak with Vastarie, Varen, and Abnur Tharn about it, though. They might have some insight.”

I groan. “Yeah, they might, and they’re probably going to make me go get their stupid amulet of doom for them first, too.”

“You can’t put off saving the world forever,” Eran says.

“I’ll check in with them once we’re done with Malabal Tor,” I promise.

“Alternatively, the Mages Guild may be able to help,” Merry says. “This is no more impractical than any of the other pointless things they do with magic.”

I always love how my friends humor my insane, impractical ideas.

Ahead, we come upon an island crawling with Maormer pirates and Bosmer pirates, located across a stretch of water just shallow enough to get our feet wet. A blind Redguard sea captain by the name of Khammo talks about how the non-Sea Elf pirates want his buried treasure and he’s trying to get passage to Anvil. Anvil isn’t very far from here, but a bit much to swim.

I go over and intimidate the leader of the pirates. The big difference between the Maormer and Bosmer pirates is that the Bosmer ones are actually willing to talk to me. And considerably more easily intimidated. If the Maormer had the good sense to be intimidated by me, there’d be a lot fewer dead ones.

We go and fight our way past the Sea Elves and dig up the Redguard captain’s treasure from the caves he’d hidden in it. The blind captain’s treasure turns out to be some assorted flagons, old bones, and rotting meat. I can’t imagine the pirates would have been quite so eager for it if they’d known exactly what this treasure was, neither group of pirates, for that matter. We return to the captain with them to confirm.

“Alright, captain,” I say. “We found flagons, bones, and meat. Was this what you were looking for?”

“Ah, my treasures!” Captain Khammo exclaims. “Excellent!”

I make no comment on how much he treasures this stuff. After all, I know Cadwell. I go over to tell the pirate captain exactly what this treasure he was looking so hard for is comprised of.

“You mean to tell me we were digging for junk?” the Bosmer pirate says. “Not gold, jewels, or priceless relics? Seriously?”

“Yep,” I say.

“Well, I’m not ferrying him to Anvil for free, and I don’t want his garbage,” the Bosmer says.

“Suit yourself,” I say lightly. “I’ve already killed all the Sea Elves on this island. I guess I’ll just have to finish clearing the pirates out.” I give him a pointful look and slowly lift Wibbly.

“You—you guys killed them all?” the Bosmer says, holding up his hands in alarm. “Wait a minute! There’s no need to do anything hasty. I think dealing with those Maormer is sufficient payment for the trip. That’ll make sailing around here a lot safer.”

I grin, relaxing my stance. “I’m glad you could be reasonable. I’ve had to kill entirely too many Bosmer lately because they thought working for Hircine and turning into werewolves was a great idea. Which was incredibly frustrating, you understand. This one asshole thought he was going to force the Green Lady to marry him instead of the Silvenar. Can you believe the nerve?”

“That’s insane,” the Bosmer agrees nervously, clearly deciding that he doesn’t want to mess with me. Considerably more sensible than those Maormer.

I return to Captain Khammo and inform him that the Bosmer pirates have agreed to take him to Anvil gratis, out of the goodness of their hearts. He looks at me dubiously, or at least stares blindly in my general direction in a dubious manner. Sighted people do not have a monopoly on dubious expressions, after all.

“Dare I ask what you offered them or threatened them with?” Khammo wonders.

“Let me paint a picture for you,” I say. “I am wearing Orcish leather armor, wielding a bloody battle axe, and standing on a mountain of Sea Elf corpses.”

“Hmm, I don’t think you meant that last one literally,” Khammo says. “Your voice would be higher up and it doesn’t stink nearly enough, and you know how many bodies it would take to make up an entire mountain?”

“Eh, probably more than there were Sea Elves on this island, true,” I say.