By the time I finally locate the old ruin that is probably Tanzelwil, the Queen’s entourage looks like it has been standing around for a while and is getting increasingly annoyed at delays. I hope they weren’t waiting for me. It’s a fairly large ruin and I approached it first by a wayshrine but it turns out the entourage is set up south over the hill from the wayshrine, at the end of the other road leading in this general direction. Who designed this place, anyway?

Everyone important on Auridon is here, along with a number of people who wish they were important. There’s the Queen’s brother, Prince Naemon, and his wife, High Kinlady Estre. Plus Vicereeve Pelidil, still looking like he’s swallowed a live scrib. I totally remembered who all of them are, and didn’t just discreetly ask the hangers-on to remind me of their names. Most of the hangers-on think this is all a waste of time, an outmoded tradition, and that the Queen ought to be paying more attention to the living than the dead.

“Ah, it’s the Queen’s favorite,” Prince Naemon says as I approach.

My heart leaps to my throat. “I’m her favorite?”

“You’d think so, given how she’s been paying far more mind to you lately than to her own brother,” Naemon says.

“We were mostly just discussing reports of Maormer activity,” I assure him.

“In any case, we have a problem here and she’s probably expecting you’ll be the one to solve it,” Naemon goes on. “Far from giving wise counsel, the dead here seem intent upon trying to make us join their ranks prematurely.”

I give him a blank look. Well, it seems high elven ghosts are normally considerably more polite than their counterparts in the north, who are as likely to decide to test you in combat before they’ll give you their blessing as anything else.

Queen Ayrenn is with Battlereeve Urcelmo further in the ruins, attempting to commune with the dead and getting only angry threats in response.

“Neralion, I’m glad you’re here,” Ayrenn says.

“I’d have been here sooner, but there was a situation in Phaer involving a vampire and a lot of people are dead,” I say.

“A vampire?” Ayrenn says in alarm. “That’s troubling. I trust you took care of the matter?”

I pat my battle axe and nod. “Did you receive my message from Silsailen?”

Ayrenn nods. “I did. I haven’t seen any sign of Norion since we arrived, but it’s very possible that the situation here may be his doing. He’s an accomplished mage, and he may be controlling the ghosts here through some vile necromancy. The news of Silsailen is also troubling. I’d hoped that the Veiled Heritance was a small group, but if they could organize something on that scale…”

“Agreed,” I say. “Do you have any idea who this Veiled Queen might be? Someone who thinks they should rule this realm instead of you? Do you happen to have any cousins that are feeling jilted?”

Ayrenn shakes her head. “I wish I knew. It might be an upstart bandit queen, or even one of my nobles plotting against me. Difficult to say at this point.”

She informs me that her priestesses are needing to perform ceremonies elsewhere in the ruins and asks me to protect them. I agree, and go off to find them.

Another priestess nearby is examining a black crystal that’s surrounded by purple swirls in the air. They appeared overnight, apparently, and then the spirits went mad and started attacking people. She thinks there’s probably a connection. She thinks there’s probably a connection? The deductive reasoning skills of high elves never cease to amaze me.

Oh, and she’s got a holy symbol she wants to try using on the stones to see if it does anything but hasn’t been able to work up the nerve to try. Seriously? It’s a holy symbol. The worst it could do is explosively make bad things go away. Fine, if she needs a brave Chimer to come up and wave a holy symbol at evil rocks, then I’ll do it. When I use the symbol, a yellow glow surrounds the stone, which then pops like a bladder of spoiled milk and is gone. Considerably less explosive than she feared. She’s so impressed that she bids me to find and destroy the rest of the evil rocks, too.

So, I make my way through the ruins, smashing ghosts in the face and destroying evil rocks, then helping the priestesses which involves smashing more ghost faces. Along the way, I find some incriminating correspondence signed from Norion next to the bodies of people he assured would not be harmed by the ghosts and he was either in error or lying. I love incriminating correspondence. I’d be making a fine collection of blackmail if it weren’t for the fact that the incriminators so frequently wound up dead at my hand immediately after incriminating themselves. I even find a Skyshard sitting on an altar near the second priestess, who gives me a very odd look when I absorb it as if trying to decide if that’s blasphemy somehow or just weird.

The final evil rock is located on top of the entrance to an underground area, and once I’ve destroyed it, the ghosts all become passive again. At least, the ones who weren’t temporarily banished via battle axe.

Queen Ayrenn and Battlereeve Urcelmo are also nearby, having made it through the ruins while I was busy smashing ghosts and destroying evil rocks. They could have waited a few more minutes for me to finish up with the evil rocks and they’d have had considerably less trouble, but I’m sure they can handle themselves. I make my report.

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

Ayrenn is planning on performing the final rituals in the crypts down below. And, having been a warrior before she was a Queen, she insists on leading the charge herself. I can respect that, but I insist on staying at her side.

“Being a warrior doesn’t mean you have to do everything by yourself,” I say.

“Of course, my friend,” Ayrenn says. “I would be honored to fight at your side.”

I grin cheekily. “Who, me? You’re the Queen. I’m just a perfectly ordinary Altmer warrior.”

She chuckles. “We’d best be careful, though. I’ll bet you three gold coins that Norion is down there waiting for me.”

“I wouldn’t bet against that,” I say.

We head down. As we’re traversing the labyrinthine corridors of the ancient ruin, a projection of Norion appears to taunt us and he sends two strong ghosts against us. I take the one on the right and Ayrenn takes the one on the left. I finish off mine and turn to see the other hurl Ayrenn to the ground. With a yell, I charge in and cleave the other ghost through the wispy purple face.

“Are you alright?” I ask, helping her to her feet and casting my shitty healing spell.

“I’m fine,” Ayrenn says. “That might bruise, though.”

“Well, my healing spells can’t really cure anything more than bruises, so it’s just as well, then,” I say.

“Let’s continue on,” she says, then grins at me. “Unless you think you need a rest.”

I shake my head with a chuckle, and we move on.

Norion is waiting for us in the final chamber, and he is incredibly annoying. He keeps taunting us about how Ayrenn is not the true queen and summoning racist ghosts to attack us while yelling about how awful Bosmer and Khajiit are. (Honestly, I like both of them better than the Altmer at this point.) (Except Ayrenn, of course. Ayrenn is awesome.)

No matter how many ghosts Norion sends at us, though, we still manage to smash his face. And his everything else.

Now that no one is trying to kill us any longer (for the moment, at least), Ayrenn performs the final ceremony while I look on, and gains the blessings of some ghosts that are either considerably less racist or considerably more liable to trust in the judgment of the current ruler. What do ghosts know about the modern political climate, anyway? Nobody’s been coming down here and telling them news, and they haven’t been wandering around reading books and talking to people like I have. Although I have no doubt that even when the world is allied against them, some Altmer are still too proud to join forces with ‘mongrels’.

Speaking of books. As I’m leaving the ruins past considerably more tranquil ghosts, I run across an overturned cart with some books spilled at its side. The title of one of them catches my eye: Monomyth: Dragon God & Missing God. I grab it and toss it in my pack. A bit too philosophical for my tastes, but Sahira-daro might like it.

While I’ve got my pack open, I look through the various notes I’ve collected thoughtfully. Norion always uses his actual name in his incriminating notes, but one of the messages I found in Silsailen was signed simply ‘N’ and was considerably more paranoid about wanting to make sure the note was destroyed. I can’t tell if it’s different handwriting or not, but it makes me wonder if there’s someone else whose name starts with N involved in this conspiracy. I run back down my notes about people, but most of the ones whose names start with N are highly unlikely to have been involved. Shrugging, I shove my notes back in my pack and head off down the road.

I return to Phaer to rest for the night and check up on Velatosse. The ruin Sahira-daro mentioned is near here, but it’s getting late and I’ve had a very busy day and would like to get some rest first.

Needless to say, Hendil did not survive the afternoon, and while Velatosse and the captain (Netanye or Netanwe or something) had a bit of an argument over what his fate should be, they wholeheartedly agreed that he should not get away with feeding people to a vampire. So they opted for public confession and execution instead of quietly murdering him in a mine. People needed to know that the plague was over and what really happened to their loved ones. The mood in town is mixed but relieved.

“I found Iwelien’s body down in the mine,” Velatosse tells me. “Oh, my poor Iwel.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say.

“The surviving thralls have been rounded up and locked in the mine and show no sign of improvement,” Velatosse says. “I’m going to start writing letters to see if anyone knows anything about curing thralls.”

“I can take some if you like,” I say. “I have an errand for the Mages Guild to perform in the morning and then I’ll be heading back to Vulkhel Guard.” I pause. “Well, if you consider delving into a dangerous ruin to try to find old books that may or may not even be there to be an ‘errand’.”

“You’re a very busy adventurer and I’m glad you stopped by, even if the news wasn’t all good,” Velatosse says. “If you hadn’t, I may have lost both of my sons. I’ll write letters to the Mages Guild and the temple of Auri-El for you to take to Vulkhel Guard tomorrow.”

I squat in Hendil’s house for the night, since he doesn’t need it and nobody else wants to go near it and it’ll give me a little privacy. I really need to organize my notes a bit better, ugh. Also maybe I should be writing them in Dwemeris or something so that people can’t just casually read them, not that there’s anything incriminating toward me in them. Plenty of incriminating things toward other people. Mostly dead people, now. I’ve been trying to be more organized in my new life and my mind isn’t what it used to be, though.

I’m fortunate that most nights, I have been exhausted enough to drop down into deep sleep, and that the Prophet occasionally usurps my dreams for the sake of rambling about destiny or something. (He’s probably going to do that again once he finds Lyris and asks me to—no, don’t think about that.) I’m fortunate that I don’t dream of Coldharbour every night. I’m fortunate that I don’t lay awake in bed afraid of what might await me in my dreams. There are times Tamriel hardly seems real, but if it’s a delusion, it’s a pleasant one.

And then there’s Ayrenn. She reminds me of Ayem, in some ways, but there’s something more genuine about her than Ayem ever achieved. Maybe that’s just the lens of hindsight speaking, though. It’s easy to see all the warning signs I should have noticed, knowing now what my dear old friends planned to do. How far in advance did they plan it? Were they ever truly my friends? Does it make it worse to be false to someone and pretend to be their friend, or to turn against someone you truly liked and cared about for your own gain? Was it worth it to them?

It doesn’t bear thinking about. I have new friends now. And I cannot imagine the likes of Ayrenn and Razum-dar sacrificing anyone to a Daedric Prince. (But I couldn’t imagine that of Ayem and Vehk, either.)

Okay, listen, Nerevar. Ayrenn is a (probably) good person and you don’t need to be paranoid about her turning against you just because your former wife whose name started with the same letter did. (I’m not sure if I could bear it a second time.) (I’m not sure if I could bear it the first time, for that matter.)

Can I just be Neralion from now on? Being Neralion is so much easier. When I can spell my name.