The cook prepares a feast in our honor full of an impressive array of meats, including the tiger, wolf, and snake, along with (non-hallucinogenic) frog legs in some sort of sauce that reminds me of scrib jelly. Talk of how we actually tried not to hurt the illusory combatants in the test ripples through the crowd, impressed that we even tried and that we won anyway.

“What a day,” Merry says over a plate of mammoth tongue he seems to be fervently attempting to pretend is not mammoth tongue.

“It’s actually been several days,” the tiger master says. “The vision distorts your perception of time.”

“This is an excellent feast,” I say. “My compliments.”

Over dinner, I tell them a bit about our adventures, the very obvious things that can be publicly spoken of at any rate. Which is most of them, really. I’m not particularly subtle most of the time. The battle with the storm atronach on Khenarthi’s Roost was going to be known by everyone there. The battle with the gianter-than-usual giant snake near Greenwater Cove was stunningly unimportant in the grand scheme of things but still a good hunt.

“The sea elves were obnoxious, but the racist bandits were the worst,” I say. “Veiled Heritance, they called themselves. Give me giant snakes any day. These people wanted to assassinate Queen Ayrenn and pull the Summerset Isles out of the Dominion, which was bad enough even if it hadn’t been for the Daedra worship.”

“The Daedra worship part of that was weird,” Eran says. “You’d think conservative Altmer wouldn’t have wanted to truck with the likes of Mehrunes Dagon.”

“That would have thrown Tamriel in disarray and likely would have led to an invasion of Valenwood, too,” Merry says quietly.

“Ilara is not sorry that so many people are dead now who hate Bosmer and Khajiit so much that they’d rather play with Daedra.”

We tell them about how the God of Schemes is scheming to conquer Tamriel and his agents are causing chaos everywhere. Some of them have seen the Dark Anchors falling in other parts of Grahtwood, but fortunately there’s none particularly near Brackenleaf.

“Hunting a Daedric Prince is an impressive endeavor,” says the wolf master.

“I’m not looking to save the world,” I say. “Not by myself. The world is too big for one mer. Mostly we’ve been solving problems and hunting down Molag Bal’s agents.”

“Saving the world one bit of it at a time,” Eran says.

“A worthy endeavor, nonetheless,” she says.

“So, you just arrived in Valenwood and you came straight here?” one of them asks. “Had you heard of us on the islands?”

Eran chuckles. “No, we just kind of got lost.”

“I don’t question where my feet take me, sometimes,” I say with a lazy shrug. “So I was looking for Elden Root, took a wrong turn and ended up here. Who’s to say that the forest didn’t mean for me to come here?”

“True,” Eran says. “He also saved my life just because he got lost, too.”

After dinner, they give us a house that I immediately dub Snugpod. Snug as it is, it’s still bigger than my closet at the Mara’s Kiss Inn. All the furniture being bone, leather, and occasional stone is a little weird, but I can live with it. It’s not like it’s any weirder than wearing armor made from bugs or living in houses made from crabs. (My current context of ‘weird’ might mainly be informed by spending the majority of my new life in the southern islands where high elves and Khajiit live.) I even hang up that painting I found somewhere that’s been sitting around in my pack taking up space.

Once we’ve settled in for the night, Eran says to me quietly, “For someone who was betrayed by his friends, you are certainly quick to trust people.”

“I resurrect at a wayshrine when I die,” I reply.

“Point.” He looks off in the direction of the door. “This lot seem like good sorts, though. I never excepted the Bosmer to be so open and welcoming.”

Fur bedding and leather hammocks can be surprisingly comfortable, and no one has cause to complain about sleeping somewhere safe, soft, and dry. We nibble on some warmed-up leftovers from last night’s feast for breakfast and step out into the morning forest. Brackenleaf Village is nestled so close into the forest that the animals come right up to the edge of town, and they can clearly be heard moving about and calling to one another in the distance. I can pick out the cries of at least four or five different kinds of bird, none of which are familiar to me.

A wood elven woman by the name of Mendil approaches us.

“Are you heading out of town?” Mendil asks.

“Just getting ready to,” I say. “We’ll be heading for Elden Root.”

She asks us if I can help someone named Firaelion (I make her spell it for me twice), who went into a cave full of spiders to make a dress or something. I promise to look for him should I manage to find the cave in question.

Just as we get to the edge of town, another woman runs up to us. “Hold on! Good thing I caught you before you left town.”

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

“No. I’m Gelur, if you missed my name. It’s probably been a lot to take in and I saw you taking notes on who is who.” She chuckles. “Listen, I’ve been speaking with my husband. About what you’re doing, and I want to go with you. He’s older than me and doesn’t feel up to trekking all over the world again, but I can help. I’m skilled at restoration magic, and you don’t seem to have a good healer. No offence.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“None taken,” Merry says. “It’s not particularly my specialty. And Neri has one spell that isn’t awful, but he can’t cast it very often.”

“And I know my way around Valenwood, too,” Gelur says. “Judging by your stories, you seem to get lost regularly. I can help there too.”

“I certainly won’t turn you down,” I say. “You should know it’s going to be dangerous, though.”

“Insanely, stupidly dangerous sometimes,” Merry mumbles.

Gelur just grins. “So much the better, then! Did I tell you about how I met my husband, hunting a bear? It was very romantic!”

“We’re about to go looking for someone called Firaelion,” I say. “Mendil said he’d gone off to some cave full of spiders, but I’m not sure where it is.”

“Oh! She must have been talking about the Scuttle Pit!” Gelur says. “Firaelion went in there by himself? Oh, that silly boy, always biting off more than he can chew. If he hasn’t come back yet, he could probably use the backup. Let’s go. It’s this way.”

Gelur leads us off through the marshy forest, and soon enough we come upon a cave with an entrance mostly covered in vines and roots that I completely would have missed if a local hadn’t pointed it out to me.

To say the cave is full of spiders is probably not a necessary statement. The bodies of dead mer lay on the floor or strung up with webs, and while Gelur recognizes a couple of them, none of them is Firry. There’s also a Skyshard situated beneath a crack in the ceiling, which I go up and absorb. Gelur doesn’t even comment on it.

After some winding tunnels, we reach a high point in the cave and encounter the biggest non-Daedric spider I’ve ever seen.

“That… is a really big spider,” Merry breathes.

“And there’s more cocoons on the far wall,” I point out. “Firry might be back there.”

“No sneaking by it, either,” Ilara whispers.

“Let’s see…” I say, grinning madly as I call upon Blinky. A radiant spear, aimed precisely, strikes the huge spider in just the right position to flip it over onto its back.

“Oh, nice shot,” Gelur says.

I’m surprised that the javelin didn’t pierce right through its exoskeleton. This spider is made of tough stuff. We charge in and take advantage of the opening to finish the spider off before it can recover, then set about to cutting open the cocoons to see if we can find Firry. Most of them are dead, but a gasp for breath emerges as we pull the last one apart.

“Firaelion!” Gelur says.

“Oh, Gelur, am I glad to see you!” Firry exclaims. “Did Mendil send you to look for me?”

“She absolutely did,” Gelur says. “What were you thinking, Firry? Only Neri here could have taken on that spider queen by himself and emerged victorious.”

“It’s true,” Eran admits. “This guy is terrifying.”

“And who are our new friends here?” Firry wonders.

“Let’s get a round of introductions going outside the spider cave, shall we?” Merry says.

We make our way back toward the village with Firry in tow. Gelur has healed him up but he’s still weak and hungry, having missed last night’s feast and spent the night tied up in a spider cave. No wonder Mendil was so worried about him.

“So you’re the newest Briars?” Firry asks. “Ah! Now I remember seeing you come into the village. I didn’t realize you were actually looking to join. You didn’t, ah, seem like the type to me.”

“We didn’t look like Bosmer, you mean?” I say with a crooked grin. “We’re full of surprises.”

“At least I got enough silk to make a dress for Mendil,” Firry says. “So something came up that venture.”

“That’s what this was about?” Gelur says. “A dress? Firry, you almost got yourself killed. I think Mendil would rather have you than some dress, no matter how fancy.”

Firry looks down sheepishly and doesn’t reply.

Mendil, not content to wait at the edge of town, rushes toward us when she sees us approaching, fortunately not tripping over any thunder bugs along the way. “Firaelion! You’re alive!” She profusely thanks us for saving him, promises not to let him out of her sight for a good long time, and drags him off. I’d almost pity him if I hadn’t just had to cut him out of a spider cocoon.

We take one last opportunity to grab a few provisions for the road, but there’s no need to stock up for a long haul since we’re going straight to a major city from here.

“Alright, with that taken care of, we ought to head to Elden Root,” I say. “Is there a road loading there?”

“Bah, the roads will take you the long way around,” Gelur scoffs. “I know a shortcut. We can just head up to the wayshrine on the bluff and come down to the lakeshore.”

“A wayshrine? That definitely sounds good.”

“Why are you so intent upon getting this wayshrine thing working?” Merry wonders. “For all this trouble you could just hire us a portal mage. And if this takes long enough to figure out, I could learn translocation magic the normal way.”

“We’ll need to be careful over there,” Gelur goes on. “There’s a nasty nereid bitch who hangs around down by the lakeshore who likes to kill mer who wander too close to her territory. If we’re looking for a fight with her, we’d better mean it.”

“What’s a nereid?” I ask.

“Water spirits,” Gelur says. “Look kinda like blue mer women, if mer women went like levitating two feet above the ground at all times. You’ll often find them around lakes and rivers. Some of them are pretty harmless and just want their particular patch of river to be left alone. Lady Solace, though, she’s a killer.”

Wood elven wayshrines are made of roughly hewn stone covered in carven vines and moss, but the brazier blazes with the same flickering blue flame when I go up and light it.

The nereid Gelur mentions turns out to be quite the bitch. As soon as we to the lakeshore down from the wayshrine, she comes upon us with wind and water powers. We’re alert, however, and Gelur really does turn out to be good at restoration magic. Ilara keeps shooting arrows at the nereid whenever she can get past the wind. I spend as much time tumbling about to avoid her water attacks as I do swinging Khenarthi’s Storm at her. Which is how I wind up losing my axe at the bottom of the lake and very nearly join it.

“Ah, fuck,” I mutter, staggering to my feet again. Upon seeing that the stupid nereid is still up and trying to kill us and I don’t have time to fail at swimming, I just summon up Blinky and stab her repeatedly with some quick puncturing strikes. One might even call them biting jabs! At least this is a weapon I can’t lose. (Or so I hope, anyway.)

Once the nereid is down, I wade ankle deep into the water to see if I can spot any sign of my axe, but I don’t see it.

“Are you alright?” Gelur asks, making sure I’m healed up.

“Yeah,” I say, wiping mud off away from my eyes. “But it looks like Khenarthi’s Storm ironically got blown into the lake.”

“Well, that blows,” Eran says.

I smirk at him. “Oh come on, I’m supposed to be the one who makes bad puns.”

“You’re contagious,” Eran says.

“Ugh, and I’m not a strong enough swimmer to go diving down to a muddy lakebed to try looking for it,” I say. “I don’t suppose anyone else…?” My companions are shaking their heads.

“We’ll have to check the guild stores in Elden Root and see if they’ve got anything good,” Merry suggests. “I’m sure we can find you another battle axe.”

“Guess so,” I grumble. “You have no idea what this means, though.”

“I guess you were attached to the axe?” Eran says.

I chuckle. “Well, it was a bit sentimental, yes, but it also means I’m going to name a new weapon something stupid.”

Merry says, “I’d say ‘How bad could it be?’ but you dubbed me Merry.”