Queen Ayrenn does not scream and throw tantrums and order impromptu executions when angry, but her quiet fury is probably even more terrifying. I would not want to be Estre right now.

Once my beard is removed, I meet up with Merormo at the Barbed Hook Tavern, although now that I know what goes on in there I’m considerably more wary about the place. I’m starting to see enemies around every corner, but is it really paranoia if there are? These are people who did not speak up or look for help when they watched someone be kidnapped right out in front of them.

“Been keeping out of trouble, Merormo?” I ask.

“I have not cast a single spell,” Merormo says. “You were taking a while so I explored town. I did not encounter Tel—ahem, I mean, no one I didn’t want to see. I even helped a mage repair a Dwemer construct. And… I met a woman who wanted someone to pray at the gravesites of her four children, who were buried around the island. May I go do that? It seems like a somber sort of pilgrimage, and I need to remember that I’m not the only one who has lost people.”

I think about that for a moment, then nod. “That sounds good. I have some other things to take care of that will see me traveling for a while. Some things have come up that require my attention. Meet up back here when we’re done, provided we don’t run into one another out there?”

“Of course,” Merormo says. “Thank you for allowing me this opportunity.” He pauses. “One thing. If you have time, could you check in at the nearby ruin of Ezduiin? The Mages Guild is conducting a dig there and I heard there was some trouble. While I don’t particularly like certain of them, I wish no harm upon them.”

“I’ll check it out and see what I can do.”

I head for the gates. It’s been a busy day, but I want to get moving before nightfall even if it means I need to camp in the (not particularly dangerous) wilderness and not stay in the (not particularly safe) inn. I don’t think I can catch up with someone who can teleport, though. I check, and Mazil-jo isn’t selling any teleport scrolls keyed to Dawnbreak, alas. That would be entirely too convenient.

Out by the wayshrine, I run across a wood elf who says he’s been waiting for me, and seems to be one of the Eyes of the Queen. He has a list of high-ranking Veiled Heritance agents for me to kill, along with their last known locations, and I write down the information with barely-suppressed glee. Wiping out their rank and file can be useful, but a targeted strike on their ‘racial purity advisor’? (Why in the names of all the Daedra would anyone need a racial purity advisor? Fucking racist bandits.)

“If these are officers, it’s likely that they had to murder their rivals for their positions,” I say. “The racist bandits have lovely practices like that. I’ll find them and take care of them, don’t you worry.”

It doesn’t take me long to find the first of the racist officers, although someone else appears to have gotten to him first. His corpse is lying near Skywatch; if he was fleeing the city, he didn’t make it very far. No sign of who killed him, but this close to town it might have just been a guard patrol.

Ezduiin (whose name I got Merormo to spell for me) is located hardly a stone’s throw from Skywatch, so it’s no great delay to stop by and see what’s wrong. Approaching the camp leads me out of the bright afternoon sunlight and into heady mist and a sky flashing with silent lightning. Well, that’s not ominous at all.

One of the tents has a book titled Why Don the Veil? sitting outside of it. Great, racist bandits here too? And there’s a tent with a full bookcase in it. Why would they bother hauling large pieces of furniture—never mind, they’re mages, they probably just used magic to teleport and levitate it there or something.

And this is where I first meet Telenger. Telenger the Artificer, self-proclaimed greatest mage in all of Tamriel, blah blah blah, and I can immediately see why Merormo is trying to avoid him. He thinks I’ve come with supplies and starts barking orders to me, and then when I tell him I’m not a courier or hauler or whatever it is you call people who move stuff around, he gets annoyed and tells me to make myself useful in going to talk to somebody else about some mysterious artifact and, oh, by the way, some of their expedition members have disappeared and he seems more annoyed than worried about it. The worst of it is that I’m probably never going to get the opportunity to actually hit this guy. Alas, I can’t hit people for simply being annoying.

I find a woman with a long name starting with S who gives me a magic rock covered in itty bitty runes and tells me to point it at ghosts and think hard at them to make them go away. Did I mention the ghosts? Yeah, apparently whatever Telenger and his companions were doing here caused some ghosts to bubble up out of the ruins. The idiots probably poked that artifact Telenger mentioned, and why do mages always see the need to poke artifacts they know nothing about?

As I make my way through the ruins, releasing ghosts as I go, I come upon a group of mages taking shelter behind a magical shield. One of them looks wounded, and they’re all grateful to see me. The wounded woman has a long name starting with C, and the other mages call her Cannie, which is absolutely spectacular. Finally, even these high elves realize their names are ridiculous.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Andewen, the one Telenger sent me to find, tells me some of their members were taken and are probably in the undercroft and they need runes to open it up. Naturally, I’m going to be the one to have to find them. Fine, that’s what I’m here for.

I free some ghosts, collect some runes, and meet Andewen at the entrance to the undercroft. According to one of the researchers we find inside (by the name of Meldil), someone with a long name starting with U is doing something bad and probably needs to be hit repeatedly. I need to release the students to stop U-name from using their souls to power something bad. (Meldil mentions I could also kill them but if I can stop U-name without doing so, why would I?) Also something about Aetherius that I don’t really understand. I don’t think I need to.

There’s also some things called ‘soul thirsters’. I get too close to one and everything goes blue and I get attacked by pissy ghosts. Right, was this what Meldil was talking about an Aetherial overlay or whatever it was? I really hope this isn’t representative of the afterlife where a lot of people go when they die. Admittedly, it’s still better than Coldharbour, I guess. This is probably just Aetherius that’s too close to Nirn or something and is full of ghosts that couldn’t quite get away from Nirn? The runed gem S-name gave me doesn’t work on them, either. Sirinque. Siri. Let’s call her Siri.

Freeing the students without killing them requires killing a lot more pissy ghosts. That’s fine. I always appreciate a problem that can be solved by hitting it, and ghosts are often surprisingly hittable.

Once the students are freed, Andewen leads them out of the crypt and sends me to kill U-name. Uricantar. Uri. You can’t arrgh? Uri decides to taunt me through a projection, calling me ‘Telenger’s pawn’.

“Oh, come on,” I say. “I’ve met the guy once and I don’t think he even knows you’re in here. He’s annoying and I don’t give one guar turd about him. You, on the other hand, are trying to hurt people and poke artifacts that are best left alone. Why do mages always insist on doing that?”

He starts ranting about his plans to suck out people’s souls and take control of a piece of the Aether. It’s a little tiresome, so I ignore him and walk away. We’ll see who’s still ranting once he meets Khenarthi’s Storm. He left a journal nearby. I skim it, and it just contains more rants. Whatever, I toss it in my pack. Someone might be interested.

I find Uri and some other guy further in, saying something about the secrets of Aetherius.

“Hey, Uri,” I say. “Would you like to see some secrets of Aetherius?”

That gets him to pause and look at me long enough for me to throw Blinky at him, then at the other high elf with him, knocking them both down with shining spears of light. They’re less than thrilled about this particular secret of Aetherius, although they don’t have much time to contemplate it as I charge forward and introduce them to my axe as well.

I find a runed talisman on Uri’s body, presumably the artifact in question, and grab it for safekeeping. Hopefully to figure out where it goes and put it back so nobody else can tamper with it.

After I leave the undercroft and am heading back to camp, a spirit appears to me and directs me to another part of the ruins. He has a long name that starts with Q. Let’s call him Quaron (‘Quarry’ would be silly). Quaron says his brother did something bad that made all the spirits trapped here but there’s a relic that can release them, so I go in and solve a stupid floor puzzle and get it. Siri might know what to do with it. I find her just outside, speaking with Quaron.

“Okay, you’re sure you can use this thing to make the situation better and not worse?” I ask. “Because I’ve spent far too much of my existence watching mages make things worse by poking at relics.”

Both of them reassure me, so I reluctantly hand over the spell lattice or whatever they said it was, and Siri does… something with it. There’s a shift in the air, and the remaining spirits milling about the ruins seem considerably less agitated.

“They’re free now, though they may not realize it yet,” Quaron says. “They will move on once they realize there is nothing holding them here.”

“In the meantime, will they at least stop attacking anyone that comes close?” I ask. “They look calmer, at least.”

“Yes, we shouldn’t need to worry about that anymore,” Siri says. “Let’s get back to camp. Telenger will want to know what we’ve found.”

I didn’t exactly do this for Telenger, who is still sitting safely back at camp and doesn’t even seem to have moved from the spot where I last saw him. I’m not even sure if I want to trust him with the talisman I got off of Uri. It’s really a pity that there isn’t some heavily warded museum or something that can safely hold things like this. I don’t even know what it’s normally supposed to do when people aren’t using it to suck up souls, but from what Quaron said, that was what it was made for.

“This thing really ought to be destroyed or nullified in some way,” I say, pulling out the artifact. It had some long name starting with M. Nobody bothered to spell it for me.

“Agreed,” Telenger says reluctantly, taking it from me and examining it. “I will make sure that it is dealt with. There is much we could learn from something like this, but it is too dangerous, particularly in the hands of people like Uricantar. That fool. I knew he was trouble when I cast him out and forbade him from using magic again.”

“Seems he ignored that penalty,” I say. “It’s a pity you can’t kill people just for being fools. Not until they start abusing ancient artifacts and trying to suck people’s souls out, by which point it might be too late to stop them from causing harm. I’m glad I got here in time to stop anything worse from happening.”

“How did you know we were having problems here?” Telenger asks.

“Someone got word back to Skywatch, possibly whoever you sent to get supplies,” I say. “And a ‘friend’ passed it along. Another of your former students, I believe, by the name of Merormo.”

“Ugh, him,” Telenger says. “Him and his ill-advised experiments. Has he been behaving himself, at least?”

“Well, on pain of being hit with a battle axe, yes,” I say. “He was doing something else stupid recently, but nobody was hurt and I think I may have scared him straight this time. He was very keen on avoiding you, too…”

Telenger snorts softly. “I would imagine. What is he doing now?”

“I sent him on a pilgrimage to pray at some gravesites around the island,” I say.

“Solemn contemplation,” Telenger says. “Well enough, so long as he stays out of trouble.”

“Oh, believe me, if he doesn’t, he’s getting a good introduction to Khenarthi’s Storm.” I pat the butt of my axe.