Another couple of severed heads have been added to the gates of Dra’bul. A Khajiit head with a sign stating “Krin Ren-dro - Traitor”. Cariel didn’t complain about me taking it, after all. Actually, she didn’t stick around terribly long after she saw what I was going to do. The other one is that of a human man with a sign reading, “Javad Tharn”. I couldn’t think of a suitable appellation that was more insulting than just his name.

And… I need to talk to my hearth-wife.

“You look pensive,” Roku says, coming out of the gates to meet me and looking up at the latest decorations. “I hope these come with a story.”

“Probably not as interesting as you might imagine,” I say with a shrug. “Javad Tharn, for one, did a lot of really annoying shit for someone with as dull of a personality as he had. Still. Let’s head back to the longhouse and I’ll tell you all about it.”

We settle in for dinner and drinks, and talk well into the night about everything I’ve seen and experienced in Reaper’s March. The mathra, the Mane, the cultists, everything.

“I was pregnant?” Roku says as I finally get to the last bit. “I… well, maybe. It’s too early to tell.”

I might be able to fearlessly do battle with Daedra, but no amount of fighting will prepare me for something like this.

“I’m about to head into Coldharbour to try to stop the Planemeld,” I say. “With the situation in Reaper’s March resolved, there’s not much longer I’m going to be able to put this off.”

“You, of all people, do not need to fear Oblivion,” Roku says.

“I still fear Coldharbour,” I say quietly. “But it doesn’t haunt my dreams much anymore. I can do this. I have to do this.”

Come morning, there’s messages waiting for me. First is someone thanking me about retrieving some relics and asking me to actually return them to Rawl’kha when it is convenient for me. They mention that there was a third camp near the Falinesti Autumn Site who got back to Rawl’kha without any problems, noting a surprising lack of bandit activity in the area and things being safer than ever.

There’s also a message from Varen saying that I should drop by Vastarie’s Tower in order to save the world once I’m done with whatever crisis I’m probably dealing with at any given moment.

In fact, Abnur Tharn is at the gates of Dra’bul personally, looking up at the severed head of his nephew. “I daresay death may have improved his disposition. I hope he did not give you too much trouble.”

“Entirely more than necessary, but we dealt with it,” I say. “Welcome to Dra’bul. What brings you here?”

“I did not think you would actually show up at Vastarie’s Tower in a timely manner and wished to speak with you in private first,” Abnur says. “Titanborn and Sahan were getting all maudlin and I am certain that you will have the chance to share drinks with them in the near future, before all is said and done.”

“Shall we speak in my longhouse, then?”

Abnur sighs. “Very well. Show me your… home, I suppose.”

He says this with the tone that says he expects a damp cave and will be reluctant to sit on dirty furs. Which is nonsense, of course. Roku knows cleaning spells. Which means he’s positively shocked when he steps inside the longhouse and looks around.

“You didn’t mention you had a communication orb,” Abnur says.

“Oh, yeah, that,” I say. “That’s a recent addition. My very sensible hunt-wife got it to keep in touch with Tamriel while she invades Pyandonea.”

“… why are you invading Pyandonea?” Abnur wonders.

“For logging.” I pause as Abnur stares at me. “Also do you have any idea how annoying Sea Elves are?”

Abnur sighs and decides not to question it further. “Vanus Galerion of the Mages Guild is working on a plan to invade Coldharbour. You will, of course, need to be involved.”

“Of course,” I say with absolute confidence that isn’t forced at all. “Why does the Mages Guild need to be involved, though? Isn’t Varen just going to portal my group in so we can take care of it like always?”

“And you intend to scour an entire realm by yourself?” Abnur asks. “Varen cannot hold Molag Bal’s attention forever. You would be noticed long before you would be able to find what you need to. And no, Varen has not been able to locate it from this end.”

“I have an artifact that should camouflage me from his eyes, to an extent,” I say.

“And would your friends be similarly protected, or do you intend to spend months exploring every nook and cranny of Coldharbour? As much as I hate to say it, even the most useless of apprentices is still a distraction and another set of eyes.”

The thought of spending an extended period of time in Coldharbour by myself is considerably worse than the thought of having backup and support. “I won’t argue that.”

He then goes into an explanation about his plan to use the amulet of doom to do some sort of ritual that will allow me to hit Molag Bal really hard and make him vomit up my soul. It requires a willing sacrifice and also sounds like an absolutely terrible idea. Lyris, Sai, and Varen have enthusiastically volunteered to die for this.

“This all just sounds completely unnecessary,” I say.

“Power such as this does not come without a price,” Abnur says. “You need not make a decision now. The Planemeld must be stopped before we can act.”

“Well, I hope you come up with a better idea by that point,” I say. “Because Lyris and Sai are fucking idiots but don’t deserve to die for this. And Varen… is also kind of a moron, for that matter, but still. In any case, why does it have to be one of them?”

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“Because I’m needed to perform the ritual and you’re needed as the target.”

“I mean. There’s an entire continent full of people here.”

“You’ll need to convince those three of that,” Abnur says. “They seem to have their hearts set on nobly dying for the cause of trying to punch a god.”

I pick up another battle axe before leaving Dra’bul. It’s an old and unremarkable weapon whose previous owner had gotten himself mauled by a werewolf a while back and no longer needs it. I promptly dub it Not-Shiny.

Roku smirks. “You know what we need? A forge-wife.”

“I don’t imagine that I’ll be meeting a lot of nice Orc women in Coldharbour,” I say. “But I’ll keep an eye out.”

I spend much of the morning hopping around Reaper’s March. Delivering relics to Rawl’kha, a journal to S’ren-ja, and finally we wind up back at Dune on the road heading north toward Fort Sphinxmoth. Why Fort Sphinxmoth? Rumors indicate that some bandits looted relics from a temple in Cyrodiil. Reports are uncertain about who the temple in question was to. Arkay or Stendarr or whoever. Doesn’t matter terribly much, I suppose.

It doesn’t seem particularly important, but it feels like a good wind-down mission before… before we do that thing I’m not looking forward to at all. And who knows, they might be dangerous and turn people into raving lunatics or summon Daedra or something accidentally, I don’t know. This is just killing time while people other than me make some final preparations for doing something insane.

We destroy a Dark Anchor on the way north. By a nearby Ayleid ruin, I spot a book titled Litter-Mates of Darkness. (Summary: The best way to banish mathra is with light. I think I already figured that one out.) We head down into the interior of the ruins to see what we might find, since I get the itching feeling that there’s probably a Skyshard down there.

“So, bets on what’s down here?” I ask. “I say thunder bugs and angry plant things.”

“Are we even playing for any stakes?” Eran wonders.

“Moon sugar biscuits,” I say.

“Fine. I say cultists,” Eran says.

“Undead,” Merry says.

“Bandits,” Ilara adds. “The rumors said something about bandits, yes?”

“It might be different bandits, if there’s bandits,” Gelur says. “I’m going out on a limb here and saying this place has a Mages Guild expedition that found something stupid.”

“Do Mages Guild expeditions ever not find stupid things?” Merry wonders.

“Probably, but we don’t hear about them,” Eran says.

We head down inside and find humans, and a journal that indicates they’re none of the above, but Colovian deserters who wanted to lay low until things calmed down. Since they were stupid enough to attack us on sight instead of trying to talk and explaining that, they died. Also they’re really racist and say some somewhat unkind things about the Khajiit and Bosmer, which doesn’t really win them any points.

“Damn,” I say. “Guess nobody wins this round.”

There is indeed a Skyshard down here, but it’s a bit tricky to get to and requires crossing some scaffolding.

There’s a wayshrine outside of the fort, this one of Imperial-style construction. I light it and go to talk to someone about the rumors. Fort Sphinxmoth is barely a fort. The crumbling walls stand at angles, the ones that are still mostly standing at least. Another Skyshard sits behind one mostly-collapsed wall.

A priestess by the name of Marcella informs me that the relics were taken from a temple of Mara, not Arkay or Stendarr, so there’s a very important detail. (At least that means the relics more likely have healing properties.) She mentions a chalice that was reputedly sent by Mara to be used at the wedding of Alessia herself.

“Wait, who did Alessia marry?” I wonder.

“Morihaus, of course,” Marcella replies.

I frown thoughtfully and try to remember. “Wasn’t Morihaus a bull?”

“Indeed,” Marcella says. “Their son, the minotaur Belharza, was the second ruler of the Alessian Empire.”

“… you know what, just tell me about these bandits.”

“They call themselves the Sphinxmoth Bandits,” Marcella says. “Perhaps not the most subtle of names. Some of the temple guards went inside to try to root them out, but they have not returned. I grow concerned for their well-being.”

“Why do bandits put the word ‘bandit’ in their name?” Ilara wonders.

“Not to mention the name of their headquarters,” Eran adds.

Merry puts in, “More clever bandits might name themselves after some random place that wasn’t their headquarters just to confuse people.”

“Let’s go find this magic human/bull wedding cup,” Gelur says. “This I have to see.”

We head inside. If there’s one thing that can be said for the ruins, it’s full of lovely traps. The walls might be falling down and the corridors half-blocked with rubble, but the traps still work perfectly. (The many, many, many bear traps were probably the addition of the Sphinxmoth Bandits, though. Dunno how great of an investment that was on their part.)

Some of the temple guards are still alive. We rescue them and heal them up as we make our way through the ruins retrieving the artifacts. One of them is chained to a post, more fortunate than most of them, especially the one we stumble upon dead along the way. One got himself trapped in a magic bubble we have to disable by lighting some braziers.

Another accidentally fell into a part of the ruin known as the Croc Pit. For the obvious reason that it has crocodiles in it. He’s still alive, clinging to a ledge out of the reach of the ravenous reptiles and calling up for help when he realizes we’re up here and not bandits. I, of course, immediately jump down and start killing crocodiles.

“Are we needed down there, or should we just cheer you on?” Eran calls down.

“Hang tight, I’ve got this,” I say.

The terrified guard (less terrified now that the closest crocodiles are dead) tells me about how there’s a stupid constellation puzzle sealing the door out. Because why wouldn’t there be.

“Ilara-daro, could you hop down here and solve this stupid constellation puzzle while I kill the rest of the crocodiles, please?”

“You know, you could just do your own puzzles for once,” Merry puts in as Ilara jumps in.

“Yeah, but I hate constellation puzzles,” I say. “They’re annoying and make me want to smack Ayleids but they’re too dead to bother.”

Ilara chuckles. “Not to worry. Ilara-daro is on the task!” She pokes three of the star panels, and there’s a click. “Done!”

“Okay, just how did you do that, Ilara-daro?” Eran wonders.

“There was a book!” Ilara replies. “Hmm, Ilara-daro thinks this might have been trickier if this book had not been laying here. She might have been poking combinations for some time.”

We kill the rest of the bandits, retrieve the relics (and the contents of their treasure room), and head back outside.

“Here’s those missing relics,” I say, handing them over. “Really, what kind of a skeever robs a temple of Mara?”

“Ilara-daro found some notes that might shed some light on the matter,” she says, handing some sheets of paper to me. “The Stonefire Cult apparently wanted the cup. The bandits were sitting on them waiting to sell them but it seems their contact is very, very late. This one wonders what could have possibly happened to him.”

“Being a cultist is a terribly hazardous occupation,” I say, and turn to the priestess. “Is there anything else of note they took from your temple? We confiscated quite a lot of probably ill-gotten goods.”

“Nothing of any great importance,” the priestess says. “You may keep or sell anything else you found as you wish.”

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to escort us to Bravil?” asks one of the temple guards we’d rescued. “I’d feel much safer.”

“Probably not,” I say. “We’ll hang around for a bit to make sure there’s no more bandits who weren’t in that ruin, though. There were quite a lot of bandits in tha ruin. I could swear sometimes that there’s more bandits and cultists in Tamriel than there are legitimate, peaceful citizens.”

Bravil is just across the border, and yet it feels so far away that I might never reach it even if I wanted to stick my dick into the mess that is Cyrodiil anytime soon.