We’re back to marching through Reaper’s March on the way to a place called Do’Krin Monastery where we were supposed to be securing some important sacred relic of some sort.

A Skyshard rests under a bridge, next to a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid, Vol. 1. (Summary: Oh my.) As I’m skimming through the book of thinly veiled innuendo, the sky rumbles and a Dark Anchor drops nearby. Once that’s destroyed, we move on and come upon a ruin.

“Is this the monastery?” I wonder.

“I think the monastery would have intact walls,” Gelur muses.

“And not be full of bandits,” Ilara adds.

“Alright, slight detour to get some bandits out of a ruin, and then we’ll try to find the monastery,” I say with a chuckle.

“Of course,” Merry says. “We would never come upon a ruin full of bandits and not clear them out before moving on.”

“It’s a public service,” Eran adds lightly.

“Also there might be a Skyshard inside,” Gelur says.

“Yes, yes,” Ilara says. “We must collect all of those. Very important.”

“Are you guys having fun?” I say with a chuckle.

It would be rude to just barge in and start killing everyone, of course, so I cheerfully greet them and introduce myself first. They predictably attack us on sight, thus immediately proving that they’re too dumb to live. (And what kind of sentries attack heavily armed adventurers that approach rather than go and warn someone? I suppose one can’t expect much discipline with bandits.)

Underneath a skeleton that still has a sword in its ribs, there’s a hatch leading down into an underground section of the ruins. It would have to be underground if there was more of it intact since the surface barely has a few crumbling walls.

The underground is full of lions and bandits. (Well, the lions might also be bandits, I suppose. They might, after all, be naked Senche Khajiit, but it doesn’t terribly matter very much since they’re attacking us on sight and not feeling like talking even if they can.)

There is, indeed, a Skyshard tucked away in the ruins. I’m always happy to find those. Maybe there’s some other neat abilities I might be able to turn that Aedric light into. I feel like they’ve all been making me stronger in some way, though. It’s hard to compare to how I felt when I first arrived back on Nirn, but I’ve been feeling a lot more stable and grounded over time. I don’t know how much of that might be because I’m getting more used to being here or that I’m becoming more attuned to it.

According to a record book I find inside, these particular bandits were planting tainted skooma in Malabal Tor that’s poisoned to cause horrible deaths, and trying to forcefully take over their competitors. I’ll need to tip off my contacts there to double-check any skooma they “find” just laying around.

“Those fetchers,” I comment. “How dare they brew tainted skooma.”

Their leader is a Khajiit by the alias of Fishbreath, sitting on a throne next to a large white lion who might be his boyfriend? Look, I’m not going to judge, Khajiit are confusing. The lion’s name is apparently Lord Tawnlii-do, so maybe he’s actually the one in charge here? I don’t even know and it doesn’t matter because they’re dead in short order anyway.

“Hey, guys!” I call to the surviving bandits, some of which just decided to hide or play dead. “Your leader is dead. Anyone stupid enough to attack us again? No? Any of you rather work for me instead?”

Once they realize what I’m actually asking, I do get a few takers. Most of the surviving bandits decide that discretion is the better part of being a criminal and valor doesn’t tend to be a useful part of the profession.

“I really should be saying something disapproving here,” Eran says as we head back to the road. “But I suppose if people are going to be taking skooma anyway, they shouldn’t need to die a horrible death from poison too.”

“They only think they can get away with it because you can’t report tainted skooma to the authorities, yes?” Ilara says.

“They probably thought we were sent by their competitors when we didn’t just kill them all…” Merry mumbles.

Further south from that ruin, we come upon a Khajiiti temple that is considerably more intact. A camp full of despondent-looking Khajiit has been set up by the road. A quick chat with them reveals that Stonefire Cultists have taken over the monastery, because of course they have.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

A moon priestess named Azahrr begs us to recover the Golden Claw before the cultists get their hands on it, but to do that, we need the blessing of the high priests. I’m not quite sure why, but feel that it’s quick enough to just go along with it than try brute force like the cultists. It’s not like I wasn’t going to rescue the high priests.

Not far inside the ruins, I come upon the body of a Khajiit woman and find a note on it. A ghost appears when I get close, who asks if we can visit the shrines for her to wish her brother safety in the war in Cyrodiil. Seems simple enough. This pilgrimage was probably considerably safer before cultists showed up. Cultists always ruin everything.

We find a priestess tied up in one of the monastery outbuildings and go to untie her and make sure she’s alright.

“How did you know to find this one here?” she wonders. “Did Jone lead you here?”

I chuckle. “Perhaps, but we’re simply going through the ruins and killing every hostile we can find, really. Oh, and the priestess at the camp outside suggested something about needing a blessing to save the claw or something but we’re still going to kill all the damned cultists here.”

“If you’re here to help, you are welcome to it.”

In addition to the cultists, there’s more mathra around the temple, ones that look like shadowy senche panthers. I guess all the breeds of Khajiit are capable of becoming Bent Cats.

The other high priest is tied up at the top of a tower. I get him untied and receive the blessing of Jode. Or Jone. Or whichever the one I needed was. (Malacath help me if I should ever need to remember whether Jode or Jone refers to Masser or Secunda. Someone has to have written this down in a book I’ve read, right? I’ll check later.)

With the two blessings, we head inside. The ghost of Rid-thar greets us once we get through the door. He explains that the cultists have vandalized some moon shrines inside the temple which we need to touch and re-consecrate in order to get into the place where the claw is being kept. Before the cultists literally bring the entire structure down trying to get at it.

“What in Oblivion do they even want the thing so badly for?” I wonder.

“Javad Tharn wants it,” Rid-thar says. “This one does not know what foul purpose he intends to turn it to, but it is a powerful relic and Rid-thar fears what he might do with it.”

We make our way through the temple, restoring the altars and killing every cultist and shadowy cat that we can find. The blessing of the two moons, spoken without much fanfare by a couple of high priests, is sufficient to cause rubble and broken stone to become an intact monolith with Rid-thar’s help. It seems ghosts frequently become more powerful than you could possibly imagine, and while this one didn’t haul an entire island around the Mundus, spontaneous architecture is still pretty impressive.

A human man is trying to get into the inner sanctum with magic light beams. He’s not having terribly much success yet, but best to make him stop before he does.

“Hello!” I say to him cheerfully. “I’m Neri gro-Drublog, and I’m afraid I have to ask you to knock it off. With a battle axe. What’s your name, so I can tell your relatives you were an idiot?”

“I’m Martialis Tharn, and I will kill you!”

“Good luck with that!” I charge in to interrupt his spells.

I’m starting to think that there are entirely too many Tharns and most of them probably need to be smacked. We kill him.

“Dammit,” I say, looking at his corpse. “I forgot to ask what in Oblivion he even wanted the thing for.”

“We probably would not have gotten a coherent answer anyway,” Eran says.

“Sometimes they gloat! Sometimes. Sometimes they even gloat more coherently than ‘with this trinket I shall rule the world somehow!’”

“It was nice of Manny to explain how exactly he intended to try to attain godhood,” Eran says. “But didn’t wind up mattering terribly much since it’s not like we weren’t going to kill him anyway.”

The Golden Claw glows brightly where it sits in the inner sanctum, so brightly that I can’t even tell that it’s a claw at first. I snatch it up and we head back outside after doing another sweep of the area to make sure we didn’t miss any cultists.

I pass off the claw back to the moon priests at the camp and brush off their praise with a more pertinent question.

“Is this going to be safe with you?” I ask. “I mean, if the Stonefire Cult could get into a well-defended temple, your camp probably isn’t terribly secure either. Should we take it somewhere else that has walls?”

“We will keep it safe,” the priestess says.

“Good luck,” I say, dubious about that but whatever. Not my problem. “We killed all the cultists we could find, but there’s probably more hiding somewhere.”

“Behind every rock, most likely,” Eran adds.

Now that we’re done with the interior of the temple, I go and visit the three shrines for the dead Khajiit woman. (Also taking the opportunity to sweep the perimeter for cultists.)

Images of memories appear at each one, culminating in her brother appearing as a… dream self? He’s transparent purple like projections usually are and she’s transparent blue like most ghosts are. They talk, thank me profusely, and disappear. I feel like I was almost an intruder on that conversation but I just can’t help but think of my wives, at some point in the future, waiting for me in the Ashpit.

It doesn’t really bear thinking about right now. I don’t even know if getting my soul back would give me a normal Chimer’s lifespan, which is still hundreds of years, or an Orc’s, or if I’ll still be basically immortal because I’m still basically a Daedra/Aedra sort of mush? I don’t even know what the fuck I am anymore. A Chimer/Orc Aedra/Daedra? I suppose, like Malacath, I’m technically both and neither.

“Ilara-daro,” I ask as we’re heading away from the monastery. “Why do Khajiiti temples always show the two moons in the same phase? Don’t Khajiit have forms for every combination of moon phase?”

“This one… does not know,” Ilara says with a shrug. “Perhaps they did not have room for them all.”

“I, for one, am glad we only needed to fix four altars and not sixteen or seventeen depending on whether you count the eclipse or not,” Eran says.