With the actual work taken care of, I decide to check out the Baandari traders (I guess those are Khajiit) and see if they’ve got moon sugar biscuits or alchemy equipment I can use. I need to restock my supply of shitty healing potions. Maybe even manage to make some that are less shitty.

All the Khajiit at the trading camp are dead. It appears that one Zaban had been trying to send word to Razum-dar to send help as he’d determined Tanion was secretly a racist bandit (as opposed to being not-secretly just a racist).

“Looks the Veiled Heritance got here before we went to the cave,” Eran says.

“Damn,” I say, then start rifling through their goods.

“What are you doing?”

“Looting, what does it look like?” I reply. “You want to help me look for anything we might need? The students can have the rest.”

“That’s cold, Neri,” Eran says. “Some of the students might have been friendly with them.”

“Ah, you think I should give them first pick?” I say. “That’s only fair.” I pause, then frown. “Oh, wait, right, you mean grief.” I put my face in my hand. “Eran, you should know that for a lot of my existence, death has meant basically nothing. If your buddy died, all you could do was go through their things and wait for them to respawn, and you could never tell how long that would take or where they might re-emerge from the waters of Oblivion.”

“You’re not in Oblivion now, though,” Eran says, his voice softening a bit.

“Yeah,” I say. “When people die here, they theoretically go somewhere better. So it’s… still hard to think much of it?”

Eran looks away, shaking his head. “I guess I can’t really blame you for that perspective. You did literally go through hell. We should really just tell the students, though.”

“Yeah, okay.” I pause thoughtfully, looking back toward the bodies. “I was just thinking that it’s too bad we already killed the ones responsible for this, but did we really? I’ll bet you there’s more racist bandits lurking about than just the handful of goons Tanion brought in to ambush us with on short notice.”

“It does seem like there’s no end to them,” Eran agrees.

We return to the campus proper and inform the students of the traders’ death. They are, unsurprisingly, upset and angry about it, particularly after learning that the traders were trying to help them, not just profit from their suffering. Some of the strudents go off to bury the corpses and collect the goods. Practicality always wins out over simply letting food supplies rot in the sun.

We don’t find any alchemy equipment, so I heal the injured students one by one over the remainder of the day as my magicka replenishes itself. Fortunately, none of them died.

The next morning, we head out with Ilara, taking the road to the north to circle around toward Firsthold by a more direct route (we’d come in from the south the last time). As we near the beach, I hold up a hand to usher in quiet, and whisper that I hear something. I creep forward to peer over a large boulder. Down on the beach, a large number of racist bandits have gathered.

“Shit,” I whisper. “The Veiled Heritance are here.”

“Are you sure it’s them?” Ilara hisses.

“Positive,” I reply.

“Can we take them?” Eran asks softly, looking out at them beside me.

I shake my head. “No, I think we ought to get backup for this one. Their leader there… he makes my skin prickle for some reason. I get the feeling he’s a lot tougher than he looks. Ilara, that message to Firsthold will need to wait for a bit.”

We return to the college to prepare a strike team.

“Baham, I think we’ve found the Heritance’s main camp in the area,” I say. “They’re out on the beach not far from the cave.”

“There’s a lot of them…” Ilara says quietly.

“We can’t let them stay there,” Baham says. “The college is vulnerable right now. I’ll get the students equipped and organized. We’ll take these bastards by surprise and remove them from our shore.”

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We meet back up on the road leading north in half an hour, with several students equipped with bows and swords, and return to the bluff overlooking the camp. A group of of wood elves sneak around to flank them by one side as Khajiit archers array themselves behind the boulders at the top of the bluff. Eran and I go to meet them head on, although by the time we get there, the wood elves have already stealthily killed several of them near the edge of camp. The archers pepper the rest of the beach, leaving us with their commander.

The commander seems to have some sort of enchantments or magical armor protecting him, deflecting most of the blows we try to land upon him. It takes a concentrated effort to get through, but eventually he drops.

Once he’s down, one of the Khajiit runs up and viciously stabs the body several more times. “That’s for Zaban, you shave-skin!”

I don’t feel it necessary to point out that this particular shave-skin may or may not have been directly responsible for the Baandari traders’ deaths. It was probably Tanion who ordered their deaths. But given that Tanion is already dead and this lot had to have been working with him, that’s close enough.

We don’t have many injured this time, so I go up and heal Nurad, whose fur is soaked with fresh blood who looks like he’s the worst off at the moment.

“Nurad thanks you,” he says. “But why not heal yourself, Neri?”

“I’m fine,” I say, then look down to notice I’m also bleeding profusely. “Oh… right, pain.” I sit down heavily in the sand.

“Nurad will get you a bandage so you don’t bleed out before you get your magicka back.”

I don’t have the heart to tell him not to bother. I don’t really feel like explaining to these people that I don’t exactly die like normal people unless I have to. Normal as in people who have never died, had their souls bound to Oblivion, and then had Skyshards shoved into them. I just sit in the sand, a bit woozy as the Khajiit patches me up.

“Sorry my shield wasn’t there fast enough this time,” Eran says to me.

The students go through the racist bandits’ supplies in the meantime, helping themselves to their provisions and searching for incriminating correspondence. It turns out their leader was a high-ranking Veiled Heritance member named Anurame. No, Aruname. Aranume. (I diligently copy this down this time.) Anarume. Fucking high elf names, anyway.

“So, this is what the Thalmor really do, isn’t it?” Baham says. “Keep the Dominion safe from bad people? Even if those bad people are high elves.”

“Yep,” I say, assuming so at least.

“We really can do this,” Baham says softly. “We avenged the traders’ deaths and made this part of the island a lot safer.”

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re worthless,” I say in my best inspiring voice. “Excuse me, I think I need to be taking a nap now.”

I flop down in the sand and pass out.

…

I wake to having my face slapped. Also for some reason I’m soaked but the water isn’t even cold.

“Wake up and heal yourself, you idiot,” Eran says, slapping my face again.

I groan softly. “Dying might be a quicker way to heal myself…” I mumble.

“Oh, come on,” Eran rolls his eyes, then slaps me again.

“Okay, okay,” I mutter, and call on the light of Blinky or whatever to heal myself, although I don’t even remember being injured. “There, happy? Can I go back to my nap now?”

“By all means,” Eran says graciously.

I close my eyes again.

…

I wake again to the smell of food. It seems in the meantime the students have hauled away most of the useful supplies, disposed of the bodies of the racist bandits, and started up some sort of event involving food and music. Someone found a lute and is playing what I assume to be some sort of haunting Khajiiti funerary dirge. Either that or it’s Tamriel’s worst drinking song.

Mourning and celebrating at the same time. Is that what Khajiit do? Or just what this group felt was appropriate for the current circumstances? I don’t know. So I ask. And we spend the evening discussing the funerary customs of the different peoples. I graciously let Eran fill in the Altmer perspective because I haven’t the faintest idea aside from their ghosts being occasionally pissy.

“You’ve been quiet, Neri,” Ilara says timidly.

“Eran can probably tell you more than me about Altmer customs,” I mumble.

“Ah, yes,” Ilara says. “Because you’re not from the Summerset Isles?”

I look up at her. “How can you tell?”

Ilara’s whiskers twitch in amusement. “Ilara knows what the voices of Altmer sound like, even when they are not sneering. You speak with a different accent, yes? Where are you from?”

“Is it that obvious?” I ask.

Ilara shrugs. “It is not so pronounced as how a Bosmer or Khajiit would speak differently from an Altmer, but it definitely has a different quality to it.”

“I might have to work on that,” I say with a chuckle. “Fine, you got me. I’m from Morrowind. I haven’t been back there since long before the Ebonheart Pact was formed, though.”

A half-truth wrapped in a truth. I’m sure there’s got to be enough foreign-born Altmer that this is unusual but not particularly astounding.

“Ah! Yes, that makes sense. Perhaps you could share some of the Dunmer traditions, then? They may be our enemies currently but maybe not forever, and it is always good to learn about other people, yes?”

I have no idea how my descendants might have changed their traditions when they changed from Chimer to Dunmer, when they took to worshipping my stupid friends instead of their old gods. They might have changed nothing or everything, so far as I know.

“Not much to tell,” I say. “They honor their ancestors, which is a worthy tradition, but I can’t say I approve of worshipping three mer who decided to pretend to be gods.”

“Oh, yes, the… Triad, was it?” Ilara says.

“Tribunal,” I say. “It’s kind of disgusting.” I shake my head. “I suppose it beats worshipping the Bad Daedra, though. No good ever comes of the House of Troubles. I just don’t really trust the Tribunal, you know? They weren’t born gods. They’re just powerful mages playing at godhood to people who don’t know better.”

“Best to keep faith in the Eight Divines instead, yes,” Eran says.