I’m looking forward to visiting Valenwood. There will hopefully be fewer racist bandits there, too. (You’d think their Veiled Queen dying would have discouraged the Veiled Heritance, but noooo…)

We meet up with Captain Jimila, the Khajiit captain of the Prowler that had brought us from Khenarthi’s Roost, visited Skywatch presumably on very important business that wasn’t just partying and getting drunk at the Festival of Defiance, and then come back conveniently in time to take us to a town called Haven, located on the south coast of Tamriel. I looked at a map.

“These privateers will take us?” Merry asks dubiously.

“Of course,” Jimila says. “Neralion and his companions will always have a place on the Prowler.”

“Let me guess, he saved you from sea elves?” Eran asks.

“That would be an excellent guess,” Jimila replies, whiskers twitching in amusement.

“He does that sort of thing,” Eran says.

On the trip over to mainland Tamriel, we are fortunately not beset upon by any sea elves nor waylaid by hurricanes. Or would that be the other way around? Whatever. The privateers take an opportunity to give Ilara a few tips in being a sleek, sneaky Khajiit.

“So, Ilara, you have a brother?” I ask.

Ilara nods. “Two brothers. One of them is an adventurer like you. He’s the one Ilara sent a letter to, but she does not know if it might find him. Her other brother is… not very bright, but we love him anyway.” She gives a small grin. “Ilara’s mother has a farm in Elsweyr.”

“Sounds like a nice place to visit should I manage to get to that part of the world at some point,” I say. “The cuisine must be exquisite.”

“Mother… did not approve of Ilara leaving the farm. Ilara told her she meant to travel to Skyrim and join the Bard’s College in the city of Solitude. It was far enough away that Mother would not be able to check and find out Ilara was not there. She did not think Mother would approve of joining the Thalmor and becoming a soldier. Mother certainly would not agree with another of her children becoming an adventurer, so Ilara has not told her yet.”

“I’ve met Eran’s family, but what about you, Merry?” I ask. “Do you have anyone to speak of?”

Merry shakes his head. “No one to speak of, no.”

Merry reminds me of Seht in some ways. The questionable experiments, the curiosity even when it might not be wisest. But he has a quality about him I could have never imagined from Seht, although I don’t know how much of that is because of his failure and me pulling in his reins. Eran’s sharp tongue reminds me of Vehk’s clever wit, but without the pretension. Ilara, refreshingly, does not even slightly remind me of Ayem. Not that I was planning on marrying her or anything, either.

As we’re making the approach to Haven, that is when we get attacked by pirates. We couldn’t have gone the whole trip without any trouble, oh no, that wouldn’t do at all. At least it’s not sea elves this time. This is apparently a group called the Jackdaws, who are at least considerably less racist. I clearly spent too much time dealing with racist elves to be refreshed by the sight of being attacked by a diverse group of miscreants.

Unfortunately for said pirates, this ship was carrying an adventuring party around. Still, while we’re able to secure the ship and put out the fires, Haven is under control of pirates at the moment and we’re unable to put into port. I jump into the water and start to swim awkwardly to shore.

“Neri!” Eran calls from the deck. “You know there’s landing boats for a reason, don’t you?”

“Oh, right,” I reply.

When we make it to shore, there’s a mer complaining about how if the Queen could see them, she’d sent help.

“Never fear!” I tell him. “We work for the Queen and we’re here to help!”

A Khajiit lieutenant protecting the refugees directs me to someone named Lord Gharesh-ri, Speaker of the Mane, which is an incredibly important-sounding title that I have no idea what it means but I diligently write it down anyway. She doesn’t know where he is right now, but asking around camp we learn he’s been being heroic or something out in the swamp.

Laying around the camp, I find a fascinating-looking book about wood orcs. I didn’t know those were a thing! I’ll have to read up on them later so I know what to expect should I run across them. Right now I kind of have pirates to deal with.

“A stroll through the swamp sounds lovely,” I say as we head away from camp.

“Sometimes I’m not sure whether you’re being sarcastic or not,” Eran says.

“Have you ever been to this particular swamp?” I ask. “Just think of all the fascinating new plants and animals we might see here!”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“All the fascinating animals that might try to rip our faces off,” Merry amends. “The plants might, too, for that matter.”

The swamp is full of bugs with red domed shells, about knee high and liable to attack in small groups. We find some of them chewing on the bodies of unfortunate mer who escaped from pirates only to run into giant bugs instead.

We find an Altmer hiding behind a rock cradling his ankle, and approach to give him some healing. He introduces himself by a long name starting with E, and is apparently an innkeeper. He asks us to find his workers who are probably lost in the swamp.

“We’ll look for them,” I say. “Get back to camp where it’s safer. We’ve probably killed all the bugs between here and there.”

“The ones larger than your palm, at any rate,” Merry says, swatting at a mosquito that landed on his hand. “The regular-sized ones are still being annoying.”

While I didn’t have much hope of finding them alive, we actually run across some people in the thorny clutches of some sort of carnivorous plant creatures who are probably planning on digesting them or something. I love this place. It reminds me of home.

A wayshrine sits outside the walls of the city, and I light it before heading inside. I’d wondered why no one was guarding the gates, but the fighting just inside would be a good indication. After figuring out who is on whose side, we join the fight and drive the pirates away from the walls.

A group of refugees is holed up in a house just inside the walls. We find the innkeeper’s cook there (who sends us off to collect ingredients for some unspecified ‘totally not illegal’ product that totally isn’t skooma), along with Lord Gharesh-ri (doesn’t the ‘ri’ honorific basically mean ‘lord’ anyway? Maybe he’s just making extra sure us dumb elves get the right idea.)

Gharesh-ri wants us to go learn the pirates’ plans so that we can organize a force to retake the fort. Sounds simple enough. He also sounds mildly annoyed at someone named General Endare who withdrew her troops just before the pirate attack and left the city defenseless. That doesn’t sound suspicious at all.

We make our way through the occupied town, cutting a swath through pirates and collecting things. There’s a Skyshard sitting in a sconce outside the Mages Guildhall, so I absorb that on the way by.

The Khajiit cook had asked us to meet with her contact to deliver the goods inside the Mages Guild, and under the circumstances I find it very doubtful he’s in here. Which he’s not. But there’s conveniently some alchemical equipment and a note on how to make the product in question, so I do so. It also mentions I should meet the contact on the beach instead. Fair enough, I suppose, but how or why did he bother getting a note in here for that? Whatever.

“This isn’t skooma, is it?” Eran asks.

I shake my head. “Skooma doesn’t normally have Hist sap in it. And it’s less sticky than this.” I accidentally spill a few drops on my fingers. “Wow, this is really sticky.” I try to wipe my fingers off but only succeed in getting it everywhere.

“You are not going to lick that off your fingers now,” Eran says with a sigh.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say. “I can’t exactly handle a battle axe like this.” I lick the sticky substance off my fingers.

Merry puts his face in his palm. “You could have just washed your hands.”

Anyway, needless to say, I’m feeling really good as we finish clearing out pirates and gathering information. Something about a ritual and necromancers, the usual stupid shit. Also something about an aquifer and a wamasu (whatever that is).

Down on the beach at a tent, we run across the quartermaster of the Prowler, Oblan, a bit far from his ship just lounging about alone by a tent as if waiting for something.

“Boboblan!” I exclaim. “Great to see you!” I plop down by the fire next to him.

“Oblan,” he says patiently. “My name is Oblan. That should be short enough for even you to get right, shouldn’t it?”

“He’s just high,” Eran says in exasperation.

“He, ah, took a sample of Khezuli’s special mixture,” Ilara says quietly. “And Ilara thinks you must be our contact, yes?”

“Oh!” Oblan says. “I didn’t expect you to… well, never mind that. Do you have it, then? Neri didn’t take all of it, did he?”

Ilara pulls out the vial. “No, Ilara nabbed this before he could ‘accidentally’ take anymore. He only had a few drops.” She hands it to him.

“You have my thanks,” Oblan says. “And my payment, of course! And don’t worry about Neri. If it was only a few drops, he shouldn’t be too high to kill plenty more pirates.” He laughs heartily.

“Yes, they’re apparently planning some sort of necromantic ritual, so we’d best go stop them quickly now,” Merry says.

Eran drags me to my feet. “Come on. We’ve got to go crawl around in a sewer and hit more things.”

“Ah, great! I love hitting things! Sewers are great fun. Will there be traps?”

“Why would there be traps in a sewer?” Merry wonders.

“Really, yeah, he’s only being slightly weirder than usual,” Eran says. “Let’s go save this town.”

The sewers are filled with pirates and bugs (hoarvors, I’m told they’re called). Before I know it, I’m fighting a giant lizard that crackles with lightning. So that’s a wamasu! Are they all this size, or is this just a larger than usual specimen?

We climb a rope, turn a turny-thing (levers are more pully-things aren’t they? I forget what the turny kind are called.), and go outside to meet up with Gharesh-ri and a bunch of Khajiit who are shooting arrows at zombies. I guess the turny-thing was for opening a gate, but also assume that the pirate necromancers have been busy already.

Ghareshi-ri directs us to the Fighters Guildhall to hit things (I immediately forget the details and hope one of my friends was paying more attention). Inside the Fighters Guild, the dim blue lighting and ominously glowing purple crystals are probably not a good sign, nor are the piles of bodies. We charge in and hit things until nothing is moving, and break the crystals for good measure to make sure none of the things that aren’t moving don’t start moving again. Wait, was that too many negatives? I lost count.

Outside, we find the lieutenant, who was wounded in the fight with the pirates. I hit her with some Restoring Light before crouching down to talk to her and give her a healing potion. She thanks me, drinks it down, and reports about how the pirates have surrendered or fled. The town is littered with necromancers who are tied up and being guarded by Khajiit soldiers, which is a hilarious enough sight, but a little disorienting as that all apparently happened during the few minutes I was inside hitting things? The drugs must be distorting my perception of time.

We report back to Gharesh-ri, who commends us and rewards us, and gives Ilara a pair of boots as part of the reward for some reason.

Ilara squees as we get out of earshot (although possibly not out of earshot of squees). “The Speaker for the Mane gave little Ilara boots! Ilara will treasure them always.”

Eran cranes his neck to inspect the footwear. “Not to put a damper on your high spirits, but I’m pretty sure he just pulled those off of the feet of a pirate.”

“Ilara does not care.” She hugs them to her chest. “The Speaker gave her boots!”