We’re on the road to Marbruk after a short break back at Brackenleaf Village, because the Queen told us to go to Marbruk for some reason that I’m not entirely clear on. I may or may not have been too busy eavesdropping on her brother to be paying attention to what she was saying. Anyway, I’d wanted to head that way anyway since I think we’ve solved every problem in Grahtwood that can be solved by hitting the right things or talking at the right people until they capitulate, and I hear my old friend Sahira-daro has opened a library there.

On the way by, we check in at the not-just-Orcs clan of ex-bandits to make sure they’re not being bandits anymore. Of course, many of the ex-bandits don’t seem overly keen on suddenly becoming miners. Fortunately, they haven’t been eaten by vampires in the meantime.

“Why do you have to say things like that?” groans one bedraggled Dunmer ex-bandit when I express that sentiment. “I heard about Goldfolly! Chief wouldn’t stop ranting about it for days.”

That’s a distinct Morrowind accent I hear from him, not like some of the foreign-born Dunmer I’ve encountered in the Guilds. “I didn’t think many from Morrowind would want to join an Orc clan.”

He sighs and rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, I’m former House Dres, and no, I don’t think anyone with a tail should be put in chains. Khajiit would gut me if I suggested they should be mining while I sit around sipping flin. And my wife Assuri over there is an Ashlander who decided to learn to read and move somewhere that’s less on fire.”

“Valenwood’s rather nice, I’ve found,” I say.

“If by ‘rather nice’ you mean ‘just as likely to try to kill you as Morrowind’, then yes.”

“Yeah!” I agree. “All sorts of things to fight without even needing to go fight a pointless fight with the next clan over.”

He groans. “Yes, about that. See, our glorious chief didn’t really brief us on the intricacies of Orc politics ahead of time. Some of us were furious when we figured it out, but Assuri just laughed it off. Said Ashkhans did this sort of shit all the time.”

“How are you guys getting on now?” I ask.

“The mine’s operational again and fortunately, those of us who were too dumb and bloodthirsty to settle down and stop being idiots have already left or gotten themselves killed or arrested. Redfur Trading Post has upped their security, too, and one idiot was stupid enough to try to mess with Jode’s Chariot.” He snorts softly. “Came crawling back with his tail between his legs after a week in the stocks and has been on his best behavior ever since.”

I bid them farewell, promising to stop by the guy’s yurt sometime once he and his wife get one set up, and I’m halfway to Marbruk before I realize I forgot to ask the guy’s name.

It’s not too far from the ruin camp to Marbruk, but my friends have to complain about me jumping off the bluff and it isn’t even that far of a drop, either. Come on, pointlessly jumping off of things is one of the small joys in life.

It’s funny seeing an Altmer-style city after having spent so much time around Bosmer buildings, and in the middle of Valenwood too! How? Why? Prissy high elves not wanting to sleep on furs? Once we reach town, my friends and I split up to go do our own thing for a bit, although they make me promise not to deliberately cause anything weird without telling them first. Of course I won’t. Most of the weirdness I cause is totally accidental. They’re not very reassured by that promise, and Ilara-daro sticks with me. (They drew straws to see which of them would get the job of minding me when they thought I wasn’t looking.)

I’ve no sooner arrived in town before being ambushed by some captain who says he was expecting me and that the Queen has ordered me to retrieve the Staff of Magnus. She may or may not have done that, I really don’t recall, but apparently the staff in question is already secure in their vault so I’m not sure what exactly they want me to do with it. She did not, however, sign me up to listening to this captain spewing forth denigrating comments about how barbaric, backwater, and savage this land is.

“Captain,” I interrupt. “I am entirely too sober to deal with casual racism right now, so if we could move right along to what we’re supposed to be doing without badmouthing this beautiful land, let’s please do that.”

With a touch of embarrassment, he clears his throat. “Right, yes, of course. I’d hate to speak ill of the land of whichever of your parents or grandparents was a wood elf.”

I pause and look at him incredulously. “Oh, come on, I’m not that short. Not that there’d be anything wrong with having Bosmer heritage.” Admittedly, wearing Bosmer-style leather armor probably makes me look more like a tall half-breed than a weird Altmer.

Before following him into the vault, I casually pick up a book titled Monomyth: The Heart of the World and start reading it to make him wait. It’s got a bit of Altmer propaganda in it, too, and I close it and absently toss it in my pack in annoyance once it starts going on about how corrupted the Chimer were.

“There you are,” the captain says when Ilara and I finally head into the vault. “I was wondering if you’d gotten lost.”

“A reasonable concern, knowing me,” I say, glancing about the room. “Why, exactly, do you have a bunch of potted plants underground?”

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“Ah, these specimens are bound for the royal gardens,” the captain says. “They are very rare and we’re hoping to cultivate them. Would you like to hear a bit about each one?”

“Are they useful in alchemy?” I ask.

“Oh, yes, some of these plants are prized by alchemists. I couldn’t tell you offhand what their particular properties are, though. I am no alchemist or botanist, I’m afraid. And no, you may not take samples,” he adds quickly as he sees me reaching for one. “If you are an alchemist yourself, you may be given an opportunity to experiment with them once we’ve gotten them growing.”

“Right, let’s move on, then,” I say. “We were here for a magic stick?”

“The Staff of Magnus, yes. No mere magic stick.”

The next room in the vault is cast in blue light from a number of Ayleid relics. The captain for some reason thinks I’d be interested in hearing the history of each one of these trinkets.

“I don’t care, captain,” I say. “Let’s get this over with so I can go get high with my Khajiit friends.”

The captain sighs judgmentally at me. “You say things like that so openly? Fine. It’s right in here.” He ushers me in through the next door. “Behold, the Staff of Magnus.”

On a shelf at the far end of the room lays a staff, glowing purple, but something about it doesn’t seem quite right. I go over to pick it up, but my hand passes through the air and the image vanishes like the illusion it is. The captain is shocked that a powerful artifact vanished beneath their very noses and the only other person to have been down here, aside from the guards, was Vicereeve Pelidil.

“Vicereeve Pelidil, huh?” I say. “I smell a skeever. And I mean that figuratively, of course. I have not smelled any literal skeevers in your pristine Guildhall here.”

We leave the vault, and the captain goes to question the guards, who confirm that no one else has entered the vault and that Vicereeve Pelidil mentioned something about preparing a gift for Prince Naemon.

“A gift?” I wonder. “Was he planning on presenting the staff to the prince or something? Why?”

The captain doesn’t have any further answers, and his visible stress level goes through the roof when the Queen herself shows up (no longer glowing) wondering where the Staff of Magnus is. And Razum-dar is at her side.

“Ilara?” Raz says, raising an eyebrow when he spots her. “What are you doing here? Raz thought you were still at school.”

“You know each other?” I ask.

“Of course Raz knows his ja’Khajiit sister,” Raz says. “She did not mention her most handsome brother?”

“Ilara-daro is your sister?” I say, and look between them at the same tan fur and red hair-ridge. “Oh…”

Raz looks back to her. “You have been calling yourself ‘daro’ already?”

“This one did not call herself that first,” Ilara retorts. “But her friends believe she has earned it. And so did Shan-ra when this one retrieved the Jode’s Tear from behind the puzzles and traps of the ruins at Redfur Trading Post.”

“Wait, that was you?” Raz says.

“And this one destroyed a Covenant portal in the Ayleid ruin Ne Salas and prevented an invasion in the middle of Grahtwood!” Ilara adds.

“She has proven a most capable apprentice,” I say.

“You have been taking Raz’s little sister into some incredibly dangerous situations,” Raz says disapprovingly.

“We made her well aware that our line of work is dangerous,” I say. “And she volunteered for those things. She’s been very eager to prove herself.”

Raz opens his mouth again, but the Queen interrupts our side conversation after having conferred with the captain on the status of the vault.

“We’ll need to find out what Vicereeve Pelidil intends and where he’s taken the Staff of Magnus, if it was indeed him who took it,” Queen Ayrenn says. “In the meantime, perhaps Neri and your sister would be willing to go to Bramblebreach and negotiate with the local Bosmer?”

“Ah!” I say. “You need some people talked at until they give up because they want me to shut up?”

“I have heard some tales of you doing the impossible along those lines,” Ayrenn says. “The Bosmer clans in this part of Valenwood have been being somewhat more reticent than the ones around Elden Root.”

“If by ‘reticent’ you mean that they’ve declared you an enemy and proclaimed allegiance to a ‘Wilderking’ who may or may not exist,” Raz says to her. “This one agrees. Neri would be perfect for this job. And Raz am certain that Neri will allow no harm to come to Raz’s little sister.”

“We’ll head out first thing in the morning,” I say.

The Queen heads off to do her bit. Raz wants to catch up with Ilara, but she makes the excuse that someone needs to keep an eye on me.

“If you want to chat with your brother, I might not be visiting the Shivering Isles today,” I say.

Valaste is in the Mages Guild, cross-referencing arcane tomes, apparently having more difficulty in translating this book than the previous one. Something about a higher than usual ratio of nonsense to not-nonsense.

“This one has her own duties, dutiful brother,” Ilara says. “Her current duties are to keep Neri out of trouble in town.”

“Hey, let’s see if we can find the local outlaws refuge!” I say.

“Raz sees your point. He must begin his investigation, regardless. Be careful, sis.”

Further exploration of the Guildhall reveals a Skyshard on one of the upper balconies. Someone in the Mages Guild recognizes Sahira-daro’s name when I ask about her, and gives me directions to the Cliffshade Library a short ways outside the main gates. I’ve got a bunch of books that are burning a hole in my pack, in a completely figurative manner because if they were literally burning a hole in my pack I would be disposing of them in a manner that does not involve giving them to a worshipper of Hermaeus Mora, God of Forbidden Knowledge.

After a stop at the outlaw’s refuge (you’d think the authorities would notice the pointy white symbol they paint on things) to procure some ‘technically not illegal’ goods, we head for the library.

The place doesn’t look like a Daedric shrine. It’s just another Altmer-style building like the rest of the town, built from pristine stone and cheery wood. But I know she’s got to have hidden a shrine in here somewhere. The place is full of books, arranged in rows on shelves, stacked up in piles on stools, and sitting in packing crates in the middle of the floor.

“Come on in!” Sahira-daro’s voice comes from the upper floor. “Sorry this one has not had a chance to organize everything yet, but there is probably something that will interest you!” She emerges from the stairs. “Oh! It’s you, Neri. How do you like my new place?”

“It’s great,” I say. “And I’ve brought you more books!”

Sahira giggles. “Thank you! Just put them… anywhere, really. Oh, Sahira-daro really needs to sort everything out, but she had some difficulties in deciding whether to arrange books by subject matter or to alphabetize them by author or title, and too many of them are anonymous or of dubious authorship to do by author, this one thinks.”

“That’s quite the conundrum,” I say, starting to pull out books from my pack. “Have you met Ilara-daro? She’s my apprentice because I’m not sure how to spell protege.”

“Bright Moons guide your steps,” Ilara says politely to her.

“Likewise,” Sahira-daro says, and adds in amusement, “There is probably a dictionary around here somewhere, too.”