I’m not looking forward to this, but I suppose I can put it off no longer. Prophet Varen Too-long-lastname has been poking at me during quiet moments to come help get the damned amulet of doom because we really do need to keep it out of Mannimarco’s hands. So, I let my wives know what’s going on in case something stupid happens, and teleport over to Vastarie’s tower.

The place has been spruced up quite a bit since how it was when I last visited. No signs of Daedric mess, no broken furniture, there’s even been some new plants planted.

Lyris shares my concerns about dealing with the amulet of doom. If it weren’t associated with multiple gods, I’d suggest simply destroying the thing and being done with it. I’d rather not provoke Akatosh, though. At least we could stuff it in a spatial pocket for the next five eras.

Abnur, on the other hand, is mostly concerned about the region we’re visiting: Colovia. He has low opinions of Colovians and isn’t shy about sharing them.

“Oh, Colovians,” I say. “I just got back from dealing with a Colovian mercenary company that was being silly.”

“With violence, I presume?”

“Mostly blatant threats and bribery,” I say. “Though there was a dash of violence in there, too. Fortunately, mercenaries are usually loyal to coin if nothing else. I felt they needed a bonus considering I was sending them up against Daedra and Worm Cultists, though.”

“At least that’s a good use for them,” Abnur says.

Sai is telling us about the place we’re going, Sancre Tor. Something about how it was inspired by the Ayleids’ assholery, at least that’s what I take away from it.

The way I understand it, the story goes something like this: The Ayleids are being assholes. Alessia says, “I’m tired of the Ayleids being assholes. Let’s go kick their asses. Oh, and the gods they worship are also assholes. Let’s worship some gods who aren’t assholes instead.”

I might be simplifying things a bit.

Anyway, Sai warns us to avoid a part of the ruin called the Crypt of Heroes, because it’s far too dangerous, which makes me perk right up.

“Did you have to mention that?” Eran says. “If you actually wanted him to avoid it, you shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. Now we’re going to have to clear the place out, too.”

“Oh, come on,” I say. “The undead are one of my favorite things to hit. And the few of them that can talk are usually deserving of being hit, too.”

Varen opens a portal to Alessia’s holy ruins, and we all file through. And by all I mean those of us who are interested in fighting, not counting Varen or Vastarie’s geriatric apprentices or that woman who was looking for the lost walking tree city. Jingles gets left behind as well.

I hardly get a chance to start admiring the moist, verdant ruins before Lyris, Abnur, and Sai start trying to needle one another again. This time, Vastarie just shoots them a look and they quiet down immediately, with mumbled apologies from Lyris and Sai. Vastarie does an excellent ‘disappointed teacher’ expression.

“So,” Abnur says, steadfastly ignoring Lyris and Sai, “Nerevar. What have you been doing since your last visit?”

“Daedric bullshit, mostly,” I say. “Also I got married. Uh, twice.” At the puzzled looks of my slightly-more-distant friends, I hurriedly explain, “I mean, at the same time. Nobody died. Well, I mean, a lot of people died, but nobody anyone cares about.”

“Neri, how high are you today?” Eran asks.

“We’re dealing with Daedric bullshit, an amulet of doom, and the biggest necromantic asshole Tamriel has ever seen,” I say. “I am one pinch shy of seeing butterflies.”

“Stendarr preserve us,” Sai mutters.

You know what the best part of moon sugar is? It makes me no longer give a flying fuck about speechcraft. About carefully crafting every word to build maximum impact, like measuring the pull of every muscle.

Before I can go into detail on my recent activities, a giant projection of Manny appears in the room in front of us. It comes coupled with giant ranting, saying something like, “I will be a god, muhahaha!” It’s pretty tiresome. And I’d honestly pity him if he weren’t such a giant skeever. He’s going to be tortured for a long, long time for attempting to betray Molag Bal like this.

It’s probably just a well that I procrastinated coming here, since Manny had put a tracking spell on Sai and didn’t actually know where the amulet of doom had been hidden until we got here. While Sai was just chilling at Vastarie’s tower, that didn’t tell Manny anything particularly interesting. At least everyone has had a chance to recuperate a bit.

“You know, I could just talk over him,” I say. “It’s not like he has anything especially worthwhile to say.”

“You were saying about your marriages?” Vastarie asks.

“Right, that,” I say. “I took over an Orc clan and married two Orc women.”

Some of them congratulate me. Abnur offers condolences.

“Do let me know if the offspring of an Orc and a Chimer still come out looking like Orcs,” Abnur comments.

“Oh, right, I was meaning to ask you guys about that, since you’d know better than, well, the Orcs I’ve been hanging out with,” I say. “With all my biological and theological weirdness, would I even be capable of reproduction?”

“Are you paying attention to me?” shrieks the ignored Worm King.

“This is what you wanted to ask about?” Abnur says, giving me an odd look. “I am certain that you could figure it out yourself in due order.”

Manny finishes his rant and cuts off his projection. Our awkward discussion is interrupted by being attacked by undead, which we dispatch in short order.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

We enter the Crypt of Heroes, where Manny does his echoing voice taunt thing again (minus the giant projection) and raises some undead. They’re easily cleared out, though.

“I’m disappointed,” I say. “You promised me a good fight. I’m bored!”

He obligingly summons something a bit stronger that at least doesn’t go down in one hit.

“A bit better, but still not good enough,” I say.

“Ah, cliché taunts,” Abnur says, carefully enunciating the stupid Breton diacritic mark.

“It wasn’t a taunt,” I say. “I actually was hoping for a good fight here.”

“Hold onto that thought,” Vastarie says. “We are likely to get one before this is over.”

And then, and then we have to listen to Manny’s rants some more. Because he absolutely has to describe in great detail how he plans to trap Molag Bal’s essence in the amulet of doom or something like that. It doesn’t make terribly much sense to me but I assume he knows what he’s talking about or he wouldn’t be so confident and Abnur and Varen wouldn’t be so concerned about the possibility of whatever scheme he’s got going on actually working. And I know that the amulet of doom is connected to the Heart of Lorkhan, which is just bad news all around. Every single problem in my existence seems to tie back to the Heart somehow. There’s a reason we call him the Doom Drum.

(A musical theme stirs in the back of my mind with the backbeat of a low drum going thump-thump, thump-thump. I shove it forcefully out of my head.)

“Manny, kindly shut up and let me hit you already,” I say, and Manny starts summoning more undead.

“Sai, why exactly did you have to keep hiding things in tombs?” Eran asks.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Sai says.

The collective facepalm from literally everyone sets off a shockwave that instantly obliterates all the undead before us. (Or my light sweep did that. One of those.)

Sai didn’t just hide things from a necromancer in tombs. He also set up a divine barrier, which might have been a better idea if it hadn’t wound up working against us. And Manny thinks it will prevent Molag Bal from seeing what he’s doing for long enough to sneak up behind him with the amulet and sucker punch him with a soul trap.

We have to consecrate two shrines to pass through the divine barrier. And one of them is behind a puzzle that he forgot the solution to.

“Right,” I say. “Ilara-daro, you’re in charge of the stupid puzzle. I’m going over here to re-inter some honored dead by means of a battle axe.”

I don’t know if I’m going to keep training Jingles in solving puzzles. My friends would probably kill me if I had a monkey fiddle with puzzles in a situation that was actually pressing. Maybe for tricks during off hours, like my juggling. I can almost juggle three atronach cores without severely injuring myself.

Hitting undead is fun, though. I wonder if I could invest in training skeletons for my Orcs. They’d get back up and put themselves back together. They’d make perfect practice dummies. I’m sure I can find a necromancer that’s willing to do something useful instead of make a mess of Tamriel. That doesn’t include present company. Vastarie refrains from comment at my query, but Abnur isn’t so polite.

“Are you seriously asking me to create self-regenerating skeletons for your Orcs to practice on?” Abnur asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Seriously asking is what people do when they are looking to have something done. Or was that a no? It’s fine if you’re too busy. I can always just capture the next idiot necromancer I find in the field and keep them in a cage and tell them if they cooperate they can keep their own bodyparts. Manny inspired quite a lot of idiots.”

Abnur sighs. “That surely would not be necessary. Ask Telacar. He does owe you a favor.”

We get into the next room and encounter the same thing. Giant projection. Again. “Bow before me, blah blah blah.”

“He’s even more long-winded than I remember him,” Vastarie comments.

For all that Manny’s monologues grate on me, this is actually a serious situation. Things will be really, really bad if Manny manages to do anything even close to what he thinks he’s about to do. And, like everything else, I cope with inappropriate humor and supreme self-confidence. Of everyone here, Ilara is the least tense. It’s like she hasn’t even seriously considered that we could fail. Or maybe she’s also just had some moon sugar.

We press on down past blooms of algae and mushrooms, the corridors dotted with statues dismembered by time or vandalism. Down at the bottom of the stairs, we come upon a huge door with a huge golden barrier in front of it. That ring we picked up from the other tomb opens it.

Since he was planning on getting and using the amulet of doom himself, Manny is actually here in person for once. Which means he’s beautifully, gloriously hittable. At least when he’s not turning invisible and teleporting around the battlefield.

It’s all my friends can do to keep down the vast numbers of undead that he calls up from somewhere. An entire city’s worth of skeletons, maybe. None of them are especially difficult, individually, but there’s just so many of them that we’re practically drowning in bones. Light and fire wash over the undead, and Ilara has taken up a position on top of some rubble to try to keep a clear shot at Manny with her bow. Still, the battle is not too hectic for Manny and Vastarie to make some cutting jabs of the verbal variety at one another as well.

I know Manny’s down when all his skeletons crumble. I immediately decapitate the arrow-riddled corpse, toss the head into my bag, and start to dismember it for good measure, but Manny’s ghost is already stepping out of it, unhittably smug.

“Did you really believe death could stop a necromancer?” Manny gloats.

His subsequent rambling about how he will become more powerful than we could possibly imagine is interrupted by a freaking gate to Coldharbour opening above our heads. I leap back and almost fall onto my butt in surprise. He can do that!?

A voice echoes out from the portal. Molag Bal goes into great detail about how fucked Manny exactly is before sucking his ghost into Coldharbour. I have never in my existence been so glad that that voice is directed at someone other than me.

“Welp,” I say, staring up into the still-swirling portal. “Sucks to be him.”

“Praise Azura, I never thought I’d see the end of him,” Vastarie says.

The amulet of doom is at hand, and people are looking at me as if expecting me to pick it up.

“Fuck no, I’m not touching that thing,” I say. “You do it.”

Sai sighs and retrieves the amulet. “Let us return to Varen and leave this place.”

No one is going to argue with that. We return to Valenwood by portal in triumph and relief. I don’t know if I trust the amulet of doom in Varen’s hands, either, but I’m pretty sure he’s not stupid enough to do the same thing twice. He might just fuck things up in a different way. It’s not like I know anything better myself, though.

I pull out Manny’s severed head, an arrow still in the eye. “Does anyone mind if I stick this on a pike somewhere?”

Abnur sighs. “While I can appreciate the sentiment, go do that at your Orc stronghold.”

Vastarie chuckles softly. “I concur. Still, I believe I prefer him this way.”

“He finally shut up,” Eran says.

“No, but I believe his vocalizations will be reduced to incoherent screams for the indefinite future,” Merry adds.

I toss the head back into my bag. “He’ll make a fine piece of decor at the gates of Dra’bul.”

Nanwen’s ghost manifests from the sword on Ilara’s belt.

“Watching the downfall of the Worm Cult has been satisfying, but could you leave my sword with Vastarie?” Nanwen says. “I’ll prefer a more sedate afterlife, or if I cannot be sent on to Aetherius, at least being somewhere a little more quiet. I’ve had enough of second-hand adventure for the time being.”

With the end of Manny and the retrieval of the amulet of doom, the team of people who know shit about weird magic need to make some preparations that I don’t want anything to do with, which means I’m going to find something else to do in the meantime. I’m not really short on things to do. Tamriel is big and full of new things to hit.

“I will contact you when we are ready,” Varen says.

“Contact me when you’re ready and I don’t look like I’m in the middle of fixing some crisis,” I say.

“You believe you will encounter more crises?”

“Of course I will encounter more crises,” I say. “That’s just the way things go. I’m at the point where I could take bets on what exactly the next crisis will entail. At least the chance of the next crisis involving the Worm Cult has decreased slightly.”

“I would not count on that,” Abnur says.