For a city named Dune, I would have expected there to be some actual dunes near it. It’s mostly rocks. And dirt, plenty of dirt too, and not exceptionally sandy dirt at that. Maybe there used to be more dunes here? Did Reaper’s March de-desertify?

On the way in, I spot a human woman playing a flute. Right, wasn’t there an instrument I found in a crypt somewhere that mentioned Dune on the inscription? I pull it out of my bag. I ask if she knows of a Valencia Nasica, who turns out to be her great-grandmother, so I give her the flute and get paid for it probably more than it was worth. Ah, you can’t put a price in gold on sentimental value, I suppose.

In the stable next to her, I’m surprised to find Queen Ayrenn, Prince Naemon, the Silvenar, the Green Lady, and Lord Gharesh-ri. That’s quite a lot of important people for one lightly-defended stable, even if I do spot Eyes of the Queen loitering in the upper windows. If I were someone who shouldn’t be here, I’m sure I would have become a pincushion by now.

“Is something wrong, or did you just decide to have a meeting someplace nobody would ever guess?” I ask.

“Dune is under attack, and I’m glad to see you here,” Ayrenn says. “If there’s anyone I trust to clear a city of Daedra, it’s you.”

“Ah!” I say. “I was worried this visit was going to be boring. Not that Khajiiti events are ever really boring, what with them usually involving moon sugar.”

I don’t feel the need to comment on how much time I just spent hauling every box of illicit goods from that basement in Pa’alat into my bag. How was I to know someone would open portals to Oblivion to summon Daedra? Maybe I should get someone else to clean up bandit lairs when I’m done with them. I could just portal in a few trusted Orcs, right? Kings are supposed to delegate that sort of thing.

Ayrenn wants us to clear the city and find whoever opened the portals. And hopefully I’ll get the chance to beat up Javad Tharn and deal with the Dark Mane and wrap up the clusterfuck that has been Reaper’s March with a ribbon and bow.

“Consider it done,” I say.

We find the Khajiit twins at the edge of town. They ramble something about how a guy they saved from the Mages Guild and a plan to recharge some sort of magic fang thing to seal the portals. I’ll take this to mean that I should go hit some stuff while having Merry hold the magic fang thing.

To charge the thing, I charge my way through various atronachs (I’m still not sure whether that’s supposed to be capitalized) and just like that, the portal is closed and this part of Dune is back to normal. The merchants barely wait for the last Daedra to be gone before rushing back to their stalls. It’s like they’re surrounded by Khajiit and want to keep an eye on their goods or something.

Khali asks me to go to the Mages Guildhall to meet up with the guy whose name I didn’t catch, while she and her sister have to attend a boring meeting. I assume the important people hiding out in the stables think there’s enough time for boring meetings because I’m on the job of kicking Daedra ass. They’re not wrong, but I feel that they’d get a lot less ridicule from warrior-type peoples like the Orcs if they were also fighting Daedra and not just talking. Ayrenn is good at delegating, though. But then, if I’d gotten here before her, I’d have cleared things out before she ever arrived.

There’s another portal in the district where the Mages Guildhall is, and clannfears swarm the area. While I’m cutting a path through them, Gelur rushes forth to heal a wounded Khajiit laying on the steps of the guildhall.

There’s a Skyshard perched atop a large boulder next to the Mages Guildhall. I have the restraint to wait until nothing is trying to kill me before climbing up there and absorbing it. And if Gelur needed my help with the healing, she’d say something.

“It was a close one, but Esan’s going to be alright,” Gelur says, putting emphasis on the name as a helpful reminder to me.

Esan mumbles something about a traitor and a totem, and points us toward the inn. We leave him there and head inside. A copy of a book titled A Looter’s Paradise lays on an end table. (Summary: Banditry goes in cycles and the Vinedusk have always been kind of crazy.) The traitor in question is a Khajiit woman by the name of Bayya, which Esan insists does indeed have two Y’s in her name for some reason. Hardly matters since she’s about to die anyway, I suppose. We kill her, smash the glowing totem, and get this portal closed as well.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

We head back over to the Mages Guild. The now-free mages suggest we go check on the temple district and make sure there’s no trouble going on there because there is almost certainly trouble going on there, so we head out to find it.

I take a wrong turn and wind up at a wayshrine instead. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad wrong turn. I light it, and spot an interesting book titled Elven Eyes, Elven Spies laying on a nearby table. (Summary: Paranoia about the Eyes of the Queen. Probably paranoia, at least. I’ll admit that I have no fucking idea what the Eyes of the Queen do most of the time, and I am/was technically a member.)

“You’re just skimming books and reading them in your head while you kill things, aren’t you,” Eran says.

“Maybe,” I say with an innocent shrug.

“Honestly, I never would have taken you for a bookworm,” Eran says.

“I had a few thousand years of history and geography to catch up on, and still only feel like I have an idea of what a small percentage of Tamriel is doing.”

“Have you accepted the inevitability of you trying to take over Tamriel yet?” Eran asks.

“Nope!” I say brightly. “Hitting things is so much more fun than being an Emperor.”

“You just need to delegate more.”

“Right!” I agree. “I just need to delegate the position of Emperor. Or Empress, as the case may be.”

A vaguely familiar black-furred Khajiit woman comes up to us. “It’s you! Zadala was wondering if you would ever make it here. Did you find the thing?”

“The thing?” I repeat.

“The thing, with the stuff?” Zadala presses.

Eran elbows me. “Remember the thing we just took from those cultists over at that camp near Pa’alat?”

“Oh, right, that thing!” I pull out the scroll case and toss it over. “Here you go! Okay, back to killing Daedra.”

Without waiting for a reward (Ilara stops to collect it for me), I stroll off back into town. We make it to the temple district and meet up with Khali and Shazah. There’s no immediately visible portal here, but now we’re back to shrine cleansing, because the shrines here have become corrupted like the ones in the other places and there’s no moon priests around with sacred soap and water to do it for us.

As we clear out the evil red-black swirls from the Khajiit altars, the voices of the Dark Mane and Javad Tharn emerge from the air to taunt us.

“Oh, good,” I say with a toothy grin. “I am so glad you two are here. I am going to kick your asses so hard.”

They don’t respond. Probably they didn’t bother leaving a spell open for anyone to reply. Eh, I don’t know anything about talking-from-thin-air magic. I’ve only barely gotten acquainted with talking-from-magic-orbs magic.

With the shrines cleansed, we head back down to the middle area in front of the main temple. The sky grows dark and crackles with thunder, and an unearthly wail echoes across Dune as a Dark Anchor drops directly into the temple, crashing straight through the roof with a resounding crunch.

“Ah, shit,” Eran utters as he looks up at it.

“Here we go!” I say gleefully, hefting Shiny and charging toward the doors.

The Anchor’s chains have pierced through the temple roof in neat holes, and a projection of Javad Tharn appears in front of them to taunt us boringly. That’s going to be hard to repair, but it’s still just a Dark Anchor, and still shatters once we’ve violently eliminated the Daedra near it and poked a pinion.

“Most people would have at least paused to be surprised at the surprise Dark Anchor,” Merry observes. “Rather than simply decisively charging in while grinning madly.”

“It’s a good thing we have someone on hand who can decisively charge in without thinking too hard about things,” Gelur says brightly.

In order to become Mane, Khali will need to go to the Temple of the Dance in the middle of Dune and walk the Two Moons Path, which I still have no idea what that means. It’s clear that Javad Tharn and the Dark Mane intend to interfere with the ceremony, so we’ll need to be on high alert.

A lot of people seem to have made a pilgrimage to Dune in order to attend the ceremonies, and probably weren’t counting on a Daedra attack in the middle of that. I vaguely recognize a lot of faces but can’t quite place most of the names, but all of them remember me. Apparently I’ve made a bit of an impression.

“So, what is this Two Moons Path all about?” I wonder. “What can we expect? Are we going to imbibe powerful hallucinogens and literally battle some inner demons again?”

“Something like that, I think,” Khali says. “I’ll admit I was not paying close attention to the fuzzy details of things that did not make much sense. Tales of former Manes who walked the Path and saw strange places, fought battles, even fell in love! But it was all spiritual, hallucinations perhaps, but more than hallucinations. Spiritual stuff.”

“There will be moon sugar involved, right?”

Khali chuckles. “Of course. Khajiit cannot have a ritual without moon sugar. It simply isn’t done.”

Khali and I head into the temple. We come to a room full of huge stone spheres with crystals, and just from the sight of them I can practically feel a stupid light beam puzzle itching at my bones. They look very much like the sorts of things the Dwemer might use for their own stupid light beam puzzles.

And in front of it all, it’s the smug cat ghost, Rid-thar. He’s still rather annoyed at me, but doesn’t belabor the point too much.

“The Dark Mane may try to interfere on the path ahead,” Rid-thar says. “Hold fast, and breathe deep of the moon sugar vapors.” He then tells me to do the stupid light puzzle and disappears.

“Khali,” I say. “I don’t suppose you’re good at stupid light puzzles?”

“Nope!” Khali replies cheerfully. “It doesn’t look complicated, though.”

We adjust the crystals and see some memory projections that I don’t pay much attention to (and maybe should have). A portal opens and we step through.