We take Vastarie out to where we buried the cursed amulet (also to make sure it’s still there and no hapless graverobbers have stumbled upon it in the meantime). We uncover it very, very carefully using a shovel and making sure no one actually touches the thing. (I’ve added a shovel to my inventory. I’ve dubbed it Diggy.) She attempts to destroy it with her own magic, without success.

“There are more extreme methods that I might yet be able to use if necessary,” Vastarie says, “but your best bet is to simply find the person who created it in the first place.”

“Well, the journal we found near it mentions someplace called Goldfolly,” I say. “So that sounds like the place to start.”

Vastarie puts up a minor ward around the area to discourage anyone disturbing the grave and wishes us luck. We set off down the road again.

“Apparently we’re putting off going and finding the things needed for the Orrery as long as possible,” Eran comments lightly.

“The what now?” I ask.

“Never mind,” Eran says with a smirk. “Let’s deal with this amulet.”

Along the road, we come upon a wood elf who is yelling at a Khajiit for eating a flower. I sigh, and stop to explain that this is a cultural misunderstanding and he can explain about the Green Pact without yelling and waving a hand axe around like it’s meant to be cutting hands. (I mean, clearly a wood elf isn’t meaning to use them to cut wood or anything.)

We also run across the fellow who had wanted us to look into his late packages, who asks us if we’ve found out anything yet. I apologize for the further delays and explain how we had to deal with Daedra and undead first but that we’re totally on the way now, and don’t mention that I’d completely forgotten about it.

I love walking in Valenwood. It’s so lively here. Gelur’s been helping me learn to recognize the calls of the various animals we can hear around us. The monkeys are so fearless that they practically crowd the roads in some places.

We come upon another Bosmer temple, the sort with entwined branches of multiple trees forming a large ‘building’. I decide to head inside and check it out and see if there’s another wayshrine in the vicinity or if anyone has any lost pets or relatives they need rescued. A Brackenleaf shrine sits off to one side, so we stop and light it first. There’s an old Bosmer in the temple who tells us about how she regularly pours sacred water from the temple down a waterfall to cleanse some ruins down below, but she’s getting too old to go climbing around waterfalls and her son is lazy.

“I’ll help you out here,” Gelur volunteers, then looks toward me. “This isn’t really the sort of thing that needs five people stomping around the woods for. Go on, then. I’ll meet back up with you at Goldfolly.”

I open my mouth to protest, but Eran elbows me and I get the hint that she’s trying to stave off another distraction. “Alright,” I say. “Be careful.”

“Don’t you worry,” Gelur says. “I will. I wouldn’t normally expect any sort of trouble in this part of the forest, but the world’s weird these days. Should more Daedra than I can handle randomly decide to invade the particular patch of forest I happen to be in, I assure you I will run away.”

While she’s collecting a vial of sacred water, I look around the temple a bit more to make sure I haven’t missed a wayshrine or lost literature or something, and only finding some orc who urges me to buy a shield. From someone else, because he doesn’t sell shields. Even though he’s in a room full of work benches. Weird guy. On the way out, I do run across a scroll, another of Marobar Sul’s atrocious misrepresentations of the Dwemer. I toss it into my pack to read later after skimming the first paragraph. Reading strange things about the Chimer would be more entertaining if I had more people I could complain about their inaccuracies to. At least my friends are good at pretending to listen and be offended on my behalf.

“To be fair, it’s not like there’s a lot of Dwemer around in this era to tell anyone otherwise,” Merry says. “Did their contemporaries know a lot about them, either?”

“Well… no, not really,” I say. “I was probably the closest among them. They were quite secretive and tended to live apart from the Chimer. There was trade, but not many people living in each other’s cities. Not like today, when in a place like Elden Root or Vulkhel Guard, you’ll not only see members of Dominion races, but others from across Tamriel.”

We come upon a graveyard with a wayshrine, and after lighting it, head inside to find an orc woman praying over a gravestone. After speaking with her a bit, we learn that her husband was buried here, and had been the owner of the cursed amulet prior to the hapless fetcher we found near Vastarie’s place. We explain how we found the amulet and my common sense (also known as Eranamo) told me to bury it instead of carry it around until we could find a way to destroy it.

“You are fortunate to have good friends looking out for you,” the orc woman (Azubeth or Azibash or something) says. “I wish I’d realized the danger. I should have never let my beloved go alone. I’d learned that it had been made in Cormount, and he’d volunteered to go and take it there. But… he never made it.”

“Cormount, is it?” I ask, writing down the name. “Hopefully we can get this thing destroyed and the dead human we found it on be the last in this chain of misfortune.” I look at the name on the journal and frown. “At least, I think that’s a human name.”

“Breton, I believe, to be precise,” Merry says helpfully.

“Where’s Cormount, anyway…” I mumble, pulling out my map. “Oh, there it is. Other side of Grahtwood, of course. Fortunately not too far from where we left the stupid cursed amulet.” I give her my thanks and condolences, then pause and look back at the tombstone. The name of her husband is much too long and flowery to be an orc name. “Your husband was an Altmer, wasn’t he?”

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“Yes,” Azzy says.

“Where do orcs go when they die?” I muse quietly. “I apologize. Funerary customs and the realms of Aetherius and Oblivion are something of an interest of mine.”

Azzy gives me a sour look. “We go to Malacath’s Ashpit. High elves live so much longer than orcs that I never imagined he’d be the one to leave this world first, but I don’t think I can follow where he went. Are you a priest, then? Of Aedra, or Daedra? Or just a scholar?”

“A traveling scholar, maybe,” I say with a shrug. “It’s not important.”

“I’m surprised that someone who died under such circumstances didn’t wind up lingering as a ghost, but perhaps the amulet itself may have had an effect on that,” Merry says. “There are ways to speak with the dead, if you are so inclined.” He pauses. “But don’t ask me. I’m not a necromancer.”

“What would he even say to me?” Azzy says. “That he’s sorry and he loves me? Maybe it would be some comfort to hear it from his own lips, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Maybe it’s time to move on and let him rest. You know, I married an Altmer because I didn’t want to be some clan-chief’s third or fourth wife, but I didn’t really give much thought as to what might happen afterward. I never thought it would matter.”

“You’re still young,” I say. “At least I think you are? I’ll admit that I’ve never seen an old orc.”

Azzy barks a laugh. “An old orc! Ah, thanks for that laugh. I needed that. Orcs tend to make sure to die before they get old and weak. Still, you’re right. There are plenty of people in the world, and maybe there’s another for me. Lesahanar wouldn’t want me to grieve over him forever. Thank you, strangers, and good luck in destroying the accursed thing that slew him.”

We part ways, and start to scout the area as Gelur hasn’t shown back up again yet, but we don’t get far before I spot a man sitting at a campfire. A Nord, surprisingly enough. We approach to speak with him, and learn that his name is Sabonn, and he’s a vampire hunter. As we speak (and of course agree to help him kill some vampires), his companions join us, a Redguard and an orc whose names I immediately forget.

From what they tell us, the town of Goldfolly is currently abandoned and they want to use it to lay a trap for a coven of vampires in the area. (A group of vampires is called a coven, right? Or is that just witches?) Sabonn’s plan is full of holes and involves putting his companions at great risk, splitting us up and spreading us all out, and I immediately reject it as strategically unsound.

“What, you think you can do better?” Sabonn asks.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “For one thing, if you’re fighting vampires, never split off to let anyone be by themselves if you can at all help it. If they’re turned while your back is turned, your own friend might turn on you, and that would turn out badly.”

Sabonn stares at me. “You’re a funny elf, but I see your point. There’s a good seven of us here, so I guess there’s no need for that.”

I lay out a new plan, one that puts solely me in the greatest danger (I’m pretty sure I can’t be turned into a vampire in my current state. Not without some sort of weird shenanigans, anyway.) I put Merry and Ilara at high points to get a good vantage to attack the vampires at range, and assign the orc to guard Merry and the Redguard to guard Ilara. They don’t know me well enough to know I’ll get better if anything happens to me, so putting them in charge of guarding a mage and an archer should give them a greater priority than doing something stupid like coming to my aid when I don’t need it. I pair up Sabonn and Eran to scout the perimeter and see if they can locate the vampires’ lair. I trust Eran to make sure Sabonn doesn’t do anything stupid, either.

(Why yes, I did get the immediate impression that these guys are kind of silly and in over their heads. A vampire might say they smell like prey or something, but I wouldn’t know, as I don’t have a nose any better than any other Chimer’s.)

Sabonn gives me the magic rock that he intended to use as bait, a stone that turns water into blood. He wants me to toss it into the well at the center of the village. (You know, if vampires had this, they wouldn’t even need to attack people. Unless they were just feeling like being assholes.)

I don’t recognize the sort of buildings that make up this village. Too much bone and leather to be Altmer, too much wood to be Bosmer. Maybe they were the wood orcs that book I found mentioned. Did they get eaten by vampires, then? Or turned into vampires?

I still reserve ‘talking’ as an option with anyone that actually bothers trying to talk to me. There’s a difference between killing someone yelling ‘Blehhh!’ and someone yelling ‘I will feast upon your blood!’, but if anyone comes up and says ‘Out of the way, let me at that delicious-smelling well!’ I think I’ll just let them at the well and smack anyone yelling ‘blehhhh!’

Once the bloodstone goes in the well and turns it into a blood fountain (kind of cool), vampires swarm out of nowhere yelling ‘blehhhh!’ Definitely not the articulate sort of undead. I make quite a lot of noise and taunts toward them, and none of them respond to my taunts in any way aside from yelling ‘blehhh!’ and trying to rip my throat out. Sadly, I get to kill fewer of them than I might like, as they wind up being incinerated or shot with arrows through the heart before they even get within arm’s reach of me.

After a while, the vampires stop coming, without any sign of a more powerful one. Sabonn and Eran return to report that the master vampire had been too smart to fall for this sort of stupid trick, but they found his lair in a nearby mine.

“Can we get the magic rock back?” I ask, carefully looking into the well without getting spurted in the face with blood. “Or is it just going to keep doing this and attract more vampires? Where did you even get that?”

“We can fish it out once we’ve nailed the master vampire,” Sabonn says. “We’d best make sure he doesn’t flee the area.”

“Right,” I say. “Let’s go, then. Point me in the right direction and I’ll take point.”

“You really love your wordplay, don’t you,” Sabonn comments.

“Being easily amused keeps me sane,” I say.

Merry snorts behind me.

The mine in question, which apparently once belonged to someone named Faltonia, is surrounded by more vampires. Not all of them were foolish enough to rise to the obvious bait. I head in first to say hello, but the vampire in question has no interest in talking, so we kill him and head back to the village.

“I don’t know why you even bothered to try to talk to them,” Sabonn says.

“Would you want to go killing someone just because a random person you met in the forest told you to?” I ask. “For all I knew, this guy was innocent—more or less—and you and your buddies were a group of bloodthirsty werewolves or something they’d been trying to stop.”

“This is more sensible than I’ve come to expect of you,” Eran says.

“I’d be offended about that, but I see your point,” Sabonn says. “You know nothing about us and had no reason to trust us.”

We fish the magic rock out of the well and return it to Sabonn. Before we part ways, I share with them a few more tips for strategy and tactics, as these folks are clearly not fighting for Ayrenn’s enemies but to keep Tamriel safe from monsters. Humans always seem so young to me, though.