I’ve apparently wound up working for a queen just by falling out of the sky and having an undercover spymaster notice, and then proving myself sufficiently competent. It’s enough to practically make my head spin—no, wait, that’s the head injury.

Queen Ayrenn makes sure I’m seen by her best healer, which means I’ve got to stop using a head injury as an excuse. For the moment. Honestly, some of it probably was due to the head injury. I also remember to grab that Skyshard on the balcony; nobody seems to mind me being up there. I wonder if I can use the power from these to become better at healing? I wonder if it would be a worthwhile use? Stupid question, of course it’s worthwhile.

Razum-dar shows up briefly at some point and we get Queen Ayrenn up to speed on who exactly I am and why we’re keeping that quiet. Even if I were inclined to try to keep that from her, he certainly isn’t. She takes it pretty well, I think, but best that we get that out of the way right away, especially if I’m going to be working directly for her. When I’m not wandering the countryside righting wrongs and doing trivial errands. She’s also pretty encouraging about the whole adventuring business, for that matter. It seems like the Eyes of the Queen basically are her personal adventuring band.

I give her a detailed report on the incursion I deflected at South Beacon as well. Honestly, it’s good to have someone I can report to about things like that. She at least makes me feel like she appreciates my reports and doesn’t dismiss my concerns and probably wasn’t involved in it like certain dead mer. The problems of the world are too big for one warrior, and while I’d like to think I was a good general once, I always preferred leading from the front.

Queen Ayrenn wants me to meet her at some ruin called Tanzelwil (diligently written down) where she’ll seek the approval of her ancestors or something. At least reverence for one’s ancestors is something elves seem to have in common. She’s in no particular hurry to get out there, though, and I have plenty of time in the interim to take care of other things and possibly solve every problem that might pop up between here and there.

I’m also given money, because gods forbid one of the Eyes of the Queen is broke. I consider buying some fancy leather armor and debate between whether it will keep me from getting killed or whether I will feel bad because it got destroyed when I inevitably get killed. Would it be unreasonable to learn to craft my own armor? There was that wood elf woman in the Fighters Guildhall who was offering crafting training, after all. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.

Her name is Millenith, it turns out, and she’s eager to get me to run all over the place. “Harvest some jute,” she tells me. “Mine some iron,” she says. “Chop some maple.” This is way more work than I had bargained for. I was expecting just to learn some pointers on crafting, not the whole process of locating, harvesting, and processing materials.

My homespun gloves have two fingers stuck together, a thumb slot sewn closed accidentally, and are sized for a small child. Millenith’s smile at my work is probably supposed to be encouraging, but looks more like a grimace to me.

“Right, good try,” she says. “Now why don’t you go back to the crafting table and deconstruct that? You can learn more about what you did wrong from taking something apart, and you can learn more about what other people did right from taking apart their works.”

My attempt at making a maple bow looks good enough at first, but it snaps like a twig when I attempt to string it. Millenith doesn’t miss a beat and diligently tells me to deconstruct that, too.

After those, I’m dreading working at the forge. And even more dreading ruining a perfectly good iron ingot. Well, I suppose it at least should be easier to turn iron back into something usable than wood or cloth. My iron dagger isn’t even completely awful. It’s at least dagger-shaped, even if it’s uneven and completely blunt.

“Good effort!” Millenith says. “Now deconstruct it.”

“Right, of course,” I say. “I’m sure I could do better than that if I put in the time and practice… I’m very good at hitting things.”

“I’m sure you are.”

Maybe I should just stick to deconstruction for now. I finally opt on the side of just buying some leather armor. Learning to craft armor that isn’t terrible would be entirely too time-consuming and I have other things to be doing. I should be making enough money in the adventuring business to regularly replace my equipment anyway. And I can always steal more from bandits or Veiled Heritance, who might as well be bandits.

Since the crafting for weapons and armor didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, I decide to see the fellow in the Mages Guildhall who offers training in alchemy, enchanting, and provisioning, to see if I’m any better at that. Surely I can cook, right? I must have cooked at some point in my previous life, but damned if I could tell you any details anymore.

Danel Telleno is a bald Dunmer and I am never going to get used to seeing those red eyes. Maybe it’s just as well that I don’t see too many of them in Aldmeri Dominion territory. Seeing what my people became is always unsettling. Are they even my people anymore?

Enchanting is completely beyond me. The less said about these bizarre runestones, the better.

I feel more confident about the provisioning bit. Danel wants me to roast a pig. Seems simple enough. Heat meat over a fire. What could go wrong? I mean, besides setting it on fire or leaving the middle cold and raw. Okay, no longer feeling confident. Was the Hortator a great chef? Probably not, or I’d have been a chef and not a general. Damn Coldharbour for crushing my memories of such simple things as good food and drink. After a while, nothing is left but violence, fear, and hate.

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Hunting down an animal to cook is the easy part. Danel graciously makes no comment on the meat that looks like it’s been carved up with a battle axe. Did I manage to clean off all traces of blood from when I last used it? Whatever, the blood of traitors would make for a fine spice. I take the meat to the hearth in the Salted Wings Tavern, and I’m really, really careful to get everything just right like the recipe says. Success! Something edible!

“Hmm, interesting flavor,” Danel says, munching on a bit. “Did you use Bosmeri spices in this? No, I’m sure you didn’t.”

Alchemy is one I’ve been looking forward to figuring out, but it turns out to be more complicated than I’d expected. I thought it would be as simple as dumping two plants into a cauldron and magically getting a potion out of it. But there’s so many more things to take into account, like the quality of the water, the interactions of the ingredients, and avoiding unwanted side effects.

I don’t know what any of the plants do and there are no helpful recipe books. Everyone’s advice is just to mix up two things and see what happens and that’s ridiculous, inefficient, and wasteful. This, of course, inevitably results in me wandering all over the immediate vicinity picking mushrooms and flowers, throwing them in a cauldron, and winding up with nothing but Tamriel’s worst tea. I decide to simply set up a section of my journal for cataloguing alchemy effects. If I’m expected to just throw random things in a pot, I’d better be keeping track of what happens.

Seemingly oblivious to the near-miss and the presence of traitors high in the ranks of the Aldmeri Dominion, a parade marches through town celebrating whatever it was Ayrenn was celebrating, I guess. Fireworks fill the skies and flower petals strew the ground. (Would those make for good alchemy ingredients? I scoop up a few.) Somebody even has a very flashy spell that shoots rainbows everywhere.

While wandering around collecting plants, I stumble upon a door leading into a ruin marked with a strange multi-pointed symbol painted on much more recently than the ruin had been built, and decide to take a look inside. Turns out it leads to a sewer/ruin underneath Vulkhel Guard. Ah, this must be the outlaw’s refuge the lady who gave me my closet mentioned. And there’s even a note here telling people not to deal with the Veiled Heritance, so I’ll give them that. I make a note of the place in case I ever need to offload stolen items or trade in illicit goods. There’s a sewer entrance located behind the temple, as well, so that might be useful if I should need to get in and out of town quietly. I kind of wish I’d known about this before the incident with Astanya.

Outside what appears to be a mine entrance, I find a book titled History of the Fighter’s Guild, pt. 2 sitting on a barrel, and shove it in my pack. Something else for my collection. I should really wait until I get home to read, instead of standing around next to suspiciously abandoned buildings while potentially being attacked by wildlife or bandits or something, but Auridon in general has seemed so… non-threatening. It’s probably the lack of half the island being on fire and swarmed by overly aggressive giant bugs, but it’s liable to make me complacent.

I decide to go in and explore the mine (a sign proclaims it to be ‘Del’s Claim’, whoever Del is.). There might be mushrooms in there. Or bandits.

Well, I was close. Turns out it’s mushrooms, and Veiled Heritance. Who, of course, promptly attack me on sight. I’d not be able to tell the difference between that and regular bandits until I spot a note titled ‘Our Dupes, the Sea Elves’, from someone called the Veiled Queen. Judging by the dead bodies, it appears that they killed all the miners. I’d best see if they’ve got any prisoners, or if not, just kill them all. They’re way too close to Vulkhel Guard, and what are they doing in this mine, anyway? Probably nothing good.

A journal next to a body expresses the regrets of someone named Vareldur, from Mathiisen, wherever that is. (Need to get a map of this island.) Poor fetcher realized too late that the Veiled Heritance are murderous scum and tried to stop them by himself. It didn’t end well for him. I toss the journal in my pack; if I get out to Mathiisen I’ll see if I can find his next-of-kin.

I don’t find anyone still alive inside who isn’t trying to kill me, but I do damned well kill everyone who isn’t smart enough to evacuate the mine as soon as they realize a madman with a battle axe is killing them all. I pack up a few more incriminating notes Queen Ayrenn will probably want to see, and I even find a Skyshard inside for some reason. I thought they fell from the sky, hence the name. No, there’s a shaft of sunlight coming down here, there must be a hole in the ceiling for it to have come down. Must have been some very precise aim to have gotten in this mine. Are the Aedra chucking them from the sky having contests to see who can get it in the most inconvenient possible hole?

Back outside, I come across some sort of weird black monolith on a small island, with a hole in the middle and some dots and lines. When I touch it, a rush of energy flows into me, the lines and dots light up, and a blue column reminiscent of the Skyshards ascends into the air for a few moments. Maybe that’s a constellation? Can’t figure out offhand which one it might be, but it seems to have done something, given me some sort of blessing, I’m not quite sure. I certainly feel a bit tougher, at least.

I run across another wayshrine (which I light) near a ruined house full of some weird furry little animals apparently called monkeys, judging by a torn page I find there. They’re all over the area, and they have faces like humans, which is kind of creepy really.

When I return to town and proceed to waste most of the plants I’ve spent all afternoon collecting, I do eventually manage to produce a health potion like Danel asked for. I used the blue mushrooms and the purple water flowers (whatever those are called). I don’t care to keep my terrible alchemy attempts a secret. Maybe it would help to learn the proper names of the plants, though. If nothing else, I think I’m starting to figure out how to better identify alchemical ingredients in the wild.

Queen Ayrenn is understandably concerned and alarmed about the massacre in Del’s Claim. “They’re nothing more than butchers, slaughtering anyone who disagrees with them. Good work in there. It’s diligent of you to search and secure the area around town.” She pauses and quirks a grin. “Or did you just decide to explore a cave because it was there?”

I clear my throat. “The latter, mostly…”

Ayrenn chuckles. “I know how that goes. The lure of taking a peek inside every cave and ruin is irresistible for an adventurer.”