We make camp at the wayshrine near the graveyard, not particularly feeling like hanging out amongst the abandoned buildings where the vampires were coming from. We’d just pop over to Brackenleaf again but Gelur can’t use the wayshrines to teleport on her own, so we’ll just wait for her here.
“So, how are you so good at wordplay, anyway?” Eran wonders. “I’d have thought if you were in Coldharbour for thousands of years, you wouldn’t have been good enough at modern Tamrielic to be making a constant stream of terrible puns.”
“It’s not like we never got in new influxes of Soul-Shriven,” I say. “And most of the ones who spoke Chimeris would have gone mad or catatonic after a few centuries. I think I was deliberately kept away from any incoming mer and put in with the humans. Molag Bal loves doing things like that. Not only being dead and in hell, but forever separated from my own people. Still, it helped me learn other languages. I’m sure I would have been completely lost had I been in solitary confinement that entire time.”
“Did you hear a lot of news from Tamriel?” Merry asks.
“Not really,” I say. “Most people didn’t care much about what was going on there, or would rather try to remember love and warmth and good food for as long as they could. And any news I actually heard, I probably immediately forgot anyway.”
“True, you immediately forget what you heard five minutes ago, too,” Eran says.
“Me trying to forget Coldharbour is rather more intentional, though.”
It doesn’t take long for Gelur to show up, at least. She jogs up to our tents when she spots us roasting some meat over a magical fire that isn’t actually burning anything.
“I thought you’d be staying in town,” Gelur says. “Did the wood orcs turn you away from the inn? Usually they’re pretty friendly, so far as wood orcs go.”
“Ah, about that…” I say. “The town’s abandoned now. Vampires killed everyone, it seems.”
“Oh, Y’ffre, that’s terrible!” Gelur exclaims. “Tell me you at least killed all the vampires responsible for that sort of slaughter.”
“That we absolutely probably did,” I say. “Or at least we killed a bunch of vampires in the vicinity who may or may not have been the ones responsible. They weren’t exactly being very chatty.”
“Well, at least you probably avenged them,” Gelur says with a smirk. “And if nothing else, got rid of some antisocial bloodsuckers.”
“You got all the water watered alright?” I ask. “Didn’t run into any trouble along the way?”
“No trouble on the way down; only ran into the priestess’ son, who realized she needed help,” Gelur says, then rummages around in her pack. “I even found one of those scrolls you like so much.” She hands it to me.
It’s another Marobar Sul scroll. I chuckle and toss it in my pack. “Thanks. You are so going to listen to me complain about that later.”
“Looking forward to it!” Gelur says. “Did you find out anything about the amulet?”
“Yup!” I say. “We’ll just need to take it to Cormount.”
“I ran into something odd, too,” Gelur goes on. “When I got to the bottom of the waterfall, I ran across a dark elf Ordinator who said he’d been sent by Almalexia.”
My blood runs cold at the mention of that name. “What was an agent of Almalexia doing here?”
“She’d apparently foreseen trouble at the ruins of Gil-Var-Delle,” Gelur says. “Seems a bit out of her jurisdiction, but whatever. There is, indeed, trouble there. The place was swarming with undead and even the Ordinator didn’t seem to feel like charging in by himself. Funny thing about it is, he told me Almalexia said to look for the ‘soulless one’.”
I frown. “Does she know about me specifically? Or was solving whatever problem here just a task that requires a Soul-Shriven?”
“It wasn’t specific, exactly,” Gelur goes on. “The Ordinator didn’t even seem to know if you’d be male or female or of what race. It was kind of weird.”
“We can eat on the road,” I say, poking at the meat, which is done by now. “You can fill us in on the details on the way.”
I’m nervous about being involved in something with one of Ayem’s servants, but it seems she doesn’t specifically know who I am. Still, I borrow Merry’s mask before we get in sight of the Ordinator in question. It doesn’t really mesh with my ensemble, but I doubt this fellow has good fashion sense and anyway, it’s not like I have fashion sense that would make sense in this century. I’d probably look old-fashioned if I tried recreating the outfits of last era rather than just buying whatever’s supposedly popular (or stealing laundry, more frequently).
Gelur tells us about how a group of Fighters Guild members had gone to destroy a Dark Anchor in the town of Gil-Var-Delle (or what was once the town of Gil-Var-Delle before Molag Bal smashed it a good while prior to the most recent smashing.) And they’d gone missing. She and the Ordinator had gone in to look for them as the undead near the entrance were just basic shitty skeletons whose only telling point was regularly getting back up to do some shitty fighting again. (They’d probably be good for housework, at least. Telacar had some undead who were sweeping his ruin before they spotted us and tried to kill us, but most of the necromancers I’ve encountered were just trying to destroy the world rather than being more practical about it.)
Anyway, the two of them rescued the one surviving Guild member who told them about how Molag Bal has some weird purple crystals around the ruins, which instantly killed the hapless Fighter who tried to destroy one. They’ve got some magic rock or something Almalexia gave them but it would destroy whoever used it, so he told her that they needed one who was soulless and deathless. So Gelur came up to get me while the Ordinator guarded the path leading out of the ruins to keep any shitty skeletons from wandering out from that particular spot.
“I’m going to wind up needing to walk back from the wayshrine after destroying every one of these ‘fangs’, aren’t I?” I comment with a chuckle.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Prolly,” Gelur drawls. “Prolly gonna do it naked, too.”
“Hey, I know how to conjure shorts!”
The skies are angry as we approach, and I can hear the distant crackle of an open Dark Anchor, but can’t actually see it past the cliffs. As we get closer, I realize it’s not a cliff, but a tree like Elden Root, or what’s left of one at least. We arrive at Gil-Var-Delle shortly enough and are introduced to one High Ordinator Danys, which sounds exactly like the sort of bullshit title Ayem would give someone. (There are more bulls in Summerset than guars. I’ve been trying to sound less like a refugee from Morrowind.) Why in Oblivion does someone need to say a word like ‘Ordinator’ when they just mean ‘guard’, anyway?
Danys has a ‘Tear of Almalexia’ that’s really just a magic rock, and I don’t believe even while pretending to be a god that Almalexia tends to cry rocks. I’d be very concerned what was going on in her tear ducts in that case. This is nothing but showmanship, something Ayem was always good at. Everything was larger-than-life and overly dramatic, where she was concerned. And this bit about no one being able to wield this magic rock without being slain by Almalexia’s anger is doubly overly dramatic.
“I have no idea why Ayem would be angry us for fighting the God of Schemes,” I mumble at this additional dollop of bullshit drama.
I thought I’d said that quietly, but the Ordinator’s head snaps over toward me and I abruptly realize the face on his helmet is based on mine. I’m suddenly glad I thought to conceal my face. I hadn’t realized Ayem would put it everywhere.
“You are more familiar with the Tribunal than I would have expected of an Altmer,” Danys says.
“I read a lot,” I say, hoping he’ll buy that excuse and trying extra-hard to suppress my accent.
Fortunately, he seems to accept that at face value and starts going on about how more non-Dunmer need to appreciate the glory of the three damned fake gods and I tune him out and go hit some necromancers. Like Vastarie’s magic rock, Ayem’s magic rock needs to be charged up by killing things, which fortunately counts the shitty skeletons milling about.
And of course, they were looking for a ‘soulless and deathless’ one for this because yes, doing this kills you. I spend the remainder of the evening walking back from the wayshrine repeatedly. Fortunately, my friends picked up my junk (because of course I haven’t figured out how to make things not fall on the ground when I die yet) and have gotten the stupid rock charged up again by the time I get back so I just have to blow myself up to blow up the next one and this gets really annoying.
“Are we quite done with this yet?” I ask after returning from destroying the fourth ‘fang’. My magic shorts disappeared at some point and Ilara is averting her eyes but I’m damned well not putting my pants back on until I know I’m done doing this shit. At this point, High Ordinator Danys had gotten a good view of my face, and the rest of me as well. Why did I agree to do this again? Even shaving recently won’t have gotten around him seeing red hair in places I don’t normally shave.
Still, while Ayem modeled the Ordinator’s helmet after my face, I doubt she did the same for his codpiece.
“We have but to destroy the Dark Anchor itself now,” the Ordinator says, also not looking at me but trying to be dignified and casual about it.
“Which we probably could have done while you were walking back for the fourth time,” Eran says. “But there’s one of those big snake Daedra down there and I thought you’d be disappointed if you didn’t get much of a chance to fight anything.”
My irritation drains out of me. “Ah, Eran, that was kind of you! Let me get dressed and then we’ll go hit the giant snake thing.”
“We gauged our chances against the foul Harvester to be considerably higher with the addition of your skills,” the Ordinator says, clearly attempting to put a damper on my high spirits by claiming they couldn’t have done this part without me, so I ignore him.
Harvesters aren’t as fun to fight as clannfears, but they’re entertaining with their four swiping arms, and it’s always funny to see how far up they can go with as little tail as possible still attached to the ground, as if levitating would be too passé but gravity is something for mortals to worry about.
It’s a pity that I can’t just make sure Danys has an ‘accident’ and doesn’t get back to Almalexia. My lack of defending him in combat stems purely from my confidence in his skill and equipment and not because I’m leaving it to the Daedra to decide whether he walks away from this or not. I would never murder someone who had done nothing wrong solely for my own sake, after all.
I’m a lying sack of shit.
What plane of hell do worshippers of false gods go to when they die? Here I am, debating the finer points of philosophy while in the middle of life-and-death combat with fiendish monstrosities from the depths of Oblivion. I’m getting sloppy. Sloppy enough that when the Ordinator falls, it’s not even intentional.
Once the Harvester is down, I look over to where Danys has been thrown against the ground. Wounded, but still breathing. Danys rasps at me, “Don’t worry about me! Destroy it, quickly!”
I break the pinion, just as I’d done with the Fighters Guild with so many other Dark Anchors. Rapid spinning, a shattering into nothingness, and the skies quickly clear. The stars are out already and I’m exhausted.
Gelur looks to me in question rather than simply rushing to the Ordinator’s side with healing magic. Has he recognized my face by now? Why would he? Why would he have the slightest inkling that the former husband of his ‘goddess’ is out slumming in the forests of Valenwood? Can she read his mind, with her fake-god powers? Can she lift the image of my face from his very thoughts and look into my eyes? She’ll know that he found the ‘soulless one’ to perform violent dentistry upon Molag Bal’s latest plot. She’ll have her eye on me as more than simply an ordinary Altmer adventurer. Is it worth the risk?
I give a terse nod to Gelur, and she goes to start healing him. Whatever Ayem might do, Danys helped here. If she still doesn’t know who I am, I’d imagine healing rather than murdering her agent would put the ‘soulless one’ in better standing with her. (Should I be capitalizing that? Soulless One, that sounds like another incredibly stupid title even worse than Vestige. I mean, in this case, it was primarily relevant just because they needed someone who wasn’t technically mortal, but really now.)
Danys thanks Gelur for the healing, and me for my willingness to blow myself up because some random mer I met in the woods asked me to. Okay, he doesn’t put it quite like that, and I’m not looking at him the entire time even though I put Merry’s mask back on for whatever good it might do. (Danys has been polite enough not to comment on someone who looks like an Altmer wearing a Khajiit mask, dressed like a Bosmer, and wielding a Dwemer axe.)
We part ways, and he heads off to wherever it is he’s going next. My friends are tired and ready to set up camp right where we are, but I hold up a hand to stop them and shake my head.
“Fuck it being late,” I say. “Let’s head for the wayshrine and get back to Brackenleaf. I want to go to sleep in my own bed, and not near this place.”
As tired as we all are, no one is inclined to argue about that sentiment.
“Do you think that guy will be a problem?” Eran asks quietly, glancing about in a completely non-subtle manner to check that the Dunmer in heavy armor is not sneaking about in the undergrowth.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I couldn’t just kill him, though. It wouldn’t have even solved the problem at hand, never mind have been rude after he’d been a help to Valenwood.”
We opt to wait until we’ve teleported through the wayshrine before speaking of anything that shouldn’t be overheard.
“Dunno how much that so-called goddess of his can even see,” Gelur says. “Didn’t sound like she could ‘see’ you very clearly at all. Maybe something to do with that lack of soul thing.”
“Let’s hope that holds true, then,” I say. “The last thing I need is her attention.”
“What do you think she’d do if she realized you were out of Coldharbour?” Gelur asks.
“I have no idea,” I say. “I honestly don’t know why she killed me the first time. The circumstances surrounding my death are incredibly fuzzy. Like a haze surrounding one sharp point of blood and pain. There is no doubt in my mind, though, that she will try to kill me again eventually. Maybe in the next era. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, best I can do is keep out of sight. She can’t be omniscient.”
“I really hope that any future marriage I might have is less complicated than yours,” Eran says.