We head out from Woodhearth by the north road. A book titled Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls lays next to a broken cart just outside of town. Are people really still failing at book delivery, or is this the sort of thing people read while carting across Tamriel? That might explain why the carts keep winding up wrecked.

On the road north of Woodhearth, we come upon a statue of a guy with a deer head standing next to a weird green-glowing pool. When I go to approach, Eran sighs and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“We can mess with the creepy Hircine statue later,” Eran says. “Or not at all. Not at all would be better.”

“Ah, fine,” I reluctantly acquiesce. “There does seem to be something about it that itches my senses as being more dangerous than usual.”

“In any case, I believe we can access that grove on your map from here,” Merry says, pointing toward a beaten path leading down into a small valley. “We indeed do not need to jump off a cliff to get down there.”

“Ah, great,” I say, heading that way. “Let’s see what sort of problems are here, then.”

As we’re approaching, we run across a terrified Bosmer babbling something about how the grove is wrong and unfamiliar and there’s spriggans and lurchers attacking people. He’s quite reassured when we tell him the Wilderqueen sent us to investigate, and directs us toward a priest before running off hurriedly toward the main road like a sensible person.

Before going to look for this priest like an unsensible person, I can feel a Skyshard nearby and spot the blue shaft of light atop a nearby rock outcropping, and no pissy plant things are going to keep me from absorbing that sweet, sweet light juice. I’ve developed another new technique from the Skyshards, taking into account Merry’s magical advice. He dubs it ‘Reflective Light’ but it’s really just throwing Blinky at stuff in a way that sets it on fire. The angry plant things are considerably more flammable than the annoying imps, which I only realize Blinky-fire isn’t really hurting them after failing to set them on fire a few times. I guess it still behaves more like normal fire even if it’s made of light.

The priest the fleeing mer mentioned isn’t hard to find, standing at a stone basin at the edge of one of those temples with entwined tree limbs. He admonishes us not to interrupt him as he’s trying to set up wards to prevent a Daedric invasion. He also mentions a couple of intruders who looked like Altmer, and I hate to think that every time Altmer are mentioned as messing around with something they shouldn’t be, I can only think of racist bandits. It would terribly not surprise me to learn that the Veiled Heritance were messing around here too somehow.

“We can help,” I say. “Just point us at what to hit or power up.”

He asks us to go power up some wardstones around the valley. While I’m afraid they might be hard to find, that fear turns out to be a bit unfounded as the things are huge and covered in symbols painted in red. Once again, I did not ask any probing questions about what we’re doing or why.

Daedra start attacking before we’re even done dumping magicka into the big rocks, culminating in a Watcher appearing in the middle of the temple. Loud, dramatic music resounds from thin air as I charge up to send it back to Oblivion.

With the immediate situation resolved, then it’s time for asking some more questions. The priest introduces himself as Orthenir, a member of the Wooded Eye, who are worshippers of Herma-Mora and caretakers of a library called Ilmyris. He’s quick to assure us that the Daedra bound here are normally harmless and we shouldn’t be alarmed that he worships a Daedric Prince.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” I say. “One of my best friends is a worshipper of Hermaeus Mora. Although I’m sure she hasn’t let any Daedra loose on Tamriel recently. Mostly she just sorts through all the books I steal. I mean, acquire.”

Orth is amused at that. “Well, maybe you understand after all, then.” He directs us toward an Ayleid ruin whose entrance is hidden beneath a big tree.

As we descend into the ruins, a voice from nowhere bids us to approach. It doesn’t sound like Molag Bal’s bluster, and his presence here is unlikely, so I’m guessing it’s Hermaeus Mora. This ruin is in even worse shape than many of the ones I’ve visited, thanks to the massive roots from the tree above. Much of it is covered in ivy and underground ferns, dotted with the blue glowing crystals the Ayleids loved so much. And shafts of light pouring in through holes in the ceiling.

I frown thoughtfully, looking up at them. “You know, I could swear I’m not constantly falling through holes into Ayleid ruins whenever I walk across Valenwood.”

“Miraculous that is,” Gelur says with a crooked grin.

Unsurprisingly for a library devoted to Hermaeus Mora, the place is full of floating books and more tentacled Watchers. (And this is possibly the one library in Tamriel and beyond that I won’t swipe books from without permission.) In the big room at the bottom, we come upon a survivor (pretty incoherent) surrounded by purple transparent figures standing on soul gem sconces. He bids us to go to the shrine pool and contact Hermaeus Mora, at least I think that’s what he’s trying to say, and honestly at this point I think I’d get more straight answers out of the God of Eyeballs.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Okay then.” I turn to my friends. “I’m going to talk to Hermaeus Mora. You might want to stand a ways away and not look too closely so you don’t go mad or anything. If I fall to the floor gibbering, please kill me.”

“Wouldn’t knocking you out be sufficient?” Merry wonders.

“Killing me would put me back at the nearest wayshrine and probably far enough away from the shrine to not mess with me any further.”

“Or it might draw your soul to Apocrypha?” Merry says.

I shrug. “Eh. There’s worse places to be trapped than the Land of Books and Tentacles.”

“I suppose,” Merry concedes reluctantly.

They put in some distance and look away, and I go up to the pool. Above it appears a shadowy form full of tentacles and eyeballs popping in and out of existence, a few of them turning to look directly at me. I’d probably find that creepier if I had less Daedric experience, but I never found this particular Prince to be all that intimidating. Honestly, I can kind of respect not being arsed to look like a mer.

He’s talking to me and I missed the first bit of what he’s saying, but that’s quite alright since he’s speaking very, very slowly and just giving himself a pretentious introduction as if someone couldn’t tell who he was to begin with.

I hold up a hand. “I apologize for the interruption, Lord Mora, but I’m aware of who you are. Hard to mistake you for anyone else, really. And I know you’re slowing things down for dumb mortals who can’t keep up with your infinite thought, but I’m capable of handling a slightly faster pace.”

He seems more amused than offended, fortunately. “Ah, yes. You. You who helped in building me a fine new shrine. I’ve been expecting you, Nerevar.” He starts going on about threads of fate or something and I just let him talk. He’s got more place to talk about that sort of shit than an upstart human warlord.

Hermaeus Mora wants me to bring him some souls that had escaped so that the Daedra may be bound here. This involves going to hit things and is readily done. For the final binding, he asks for the soul of the still-gibbering Bosmer whose mind had been shattered by memory crystals. Although he’s barely coherent still, it’s not particularly difficult to persuade him to kill himself in the name of his Prince. He’s probably better off in Apocrypha, honestly. At least he might get his sense of self back.

As a reward, Hermaeus Mora gives me knowledge, and shows me a vision of the intruders who came here and what they did. And unsurprisingly, it’s Vicereeve Pelidil, and with him is the twin we encountered in Woodhearth. (Did he kill her because she knew too much? No, he’d have done it when she was here if he were going to do that.) They forced the priests to absorb memory after memory, searching for something they say Estre will need. The last one, the survivor, eventually came upon what they were looking for, and Pelidil takes the knowledge from the crystal too, presumably thinking only one would be okay. He mentions something about Hectahame, before the vision ends.

“Thank you for the knowledge, Lord Mora,” I say politely, bowing toward the shadowy tentacled eyeballs.

I would be thanking him even if he’d just given me a recipe for Balmora cabbage biscuits. I know he’s probably just hoping I’ll hunt down and violently punish the ones who made a mess of his library.

We head back out of the ruins and let Orth know the situation has been resolved for the moment, aside from everyone but him being dead or mad. He’s not thrilled at the thought of taking care of this place all by himself as the only person left with their mind intact.

“I’ll let Sahira-daro know you’re here,” I say. “She might be able to visit or send you support. I’m not sure how much of a cult she’s got going. I just travel and collect books.”

While the matter with Pelidil and the racist bandits is rather pressing, I can get back to her in five minutes at the next wayshrine. I need to drop off some books anyway.

“Thank you,” Orth says. “Sahira-daro. I will be certain to have the wards let her in, although she should be able to find the place if you tell her where to look. Or if our warding scheme still isn’t fully repaired.”

“I spoke with Hermaeus Mora,” I say. “He told me where to find the ones who did this. You can be assured your fellow priests will be avenged. Along with everyone else the racist bandits have fucked over.”

At the edge of the grove, we run across an injured Bosmer, who upon being healed thanks us but assures us not to worry about her and asks for help for her companions. Her group was attacked by Argonians and taken captive.

Along the way, we come upon an Ebonheart Pact reconnaissance camp comprised of two particularly tough Argonians and a Dunmer. We’re able to kill them, but it takes a concerted effort and a lot of healing. (Part of this may have been due to some unnecessary cliff-jumping.)

We find and rescue the captives, one of them promising to roast the next Argonians he sees over a spit, which is such a Bosmer thing to say.

“Can you find your way back to civilization from here?” I ask. “We’ve dealt with everything that might be a problem between here and Woodhearth, and we need to get to Seaside Sanctuary to head off a Maormer invasion.”

“That sounds rather more pressing than escorting us. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

Continuing on and definitely not lost or anything, I spot a book titled The Eldest: A Pilgrim’s Tale, left under a tent by a small fire pit full of ashes.

Up on the hill overlooking Rootwater Grove is a larger-than-usual tree thing. (Lurchers, I guess they’re called. Makes as much sense as calling a giant bug a ‘silt strider’, I suppose.) It’s quite tough, but also fortunately quite flammable. I am enjoying my newfound ability to set things on fire in a way that isn’t Tamriel’s shittiest flame sputter primarily suitable for lighting campfires and wayshrines.

Another half-ruined Imperial tower juts out of the swampy ground, full of another set of magical crafting tables. Merry starts to explain something about people taking advantage of certain kinds of magic being stronger in certain places but I’m ignoring him and exploring the tower instead. Way up at the top of the ruined staircase, a book titled Woodhearth: A Pocket Guide.

“You know, I’m always wondering why you keep climbing up ruins like this,” Eran says. “And now I’m wondering even more why you keep finding things in these places.”

Not far from the tower, we run across a bitch of a wispmother who might be the one the fellow in Woodhearth mentioned, so we kill her and all the annoying wisps floating around.

It must be the right one, as we find the guy in question nearby who recognizes my companions and claims he’d come back to help avenge his companions, which mostly involves standing on a nearby hill and watching without actually helping.