If I’m going to have to fight a lich, I think I’d best get some expert advice on the matter. I want to be sure Estre stays dead this time around. So, to that end, I take a wayshrine to Vastarie’s Tower in Grahtwood. It seems like the people who hang out there never go anywhere or do anything when I’m not looking, but I’m sure they do, although I have no idea what. I will generously assume that people do things when I’m not looking at them.

The Redguard swordsman is feeling much better and eager to spill the beans on where he left that damned amulet. I have to tell them that they’ll have to wait on that for a little bit, though, since I’m dealing with problems of a very pressing nature in Greenshade. I do love having legitimate excuses sometimes, if nothing else. At least he’s unlikely to have hidden it in Coldharbour, so there’s the bonus of not having to go back there for something this time.

“I’ll be back once the situation in Greenshade has stabilized,” I say. “Get your strength back up.”

“An army of the dead,” Sai says. “I wish I could join you. I am eager to put my blade to use against something other than practice dummies.”

“Unfortunately, this city Nerevar mentioned, Marbruk, is so new I have never been there to be able to open a portal there,” Vastarie says.

The most annoying thing about magic is that it can do whatever you want, except when it can’t. Ridiculous. Portals and teleportation are one of the sorts of magic I’m okay with. And not just because they’re bloody convenient, which they are.

“Any enlightenment on how to defeat a lich, at least?” I ask.

“If she had been dead for a while then raised later, then she is not the same manner of being that I am,” Vastarie said.

I nod thoughtfully. “Yes, that had seemed odd to me. But then, when Vicereeve Pelidil kept ranting about how he’d raised his precious Veiled Queen as a lich, I got the feeling he might not have been all there, mentally speaking, and coming from me, that’s probably saying something.”

“You visit the Shivering Isles for fun,” Merry points out.

“Exactly,” I say. “And I don’t steal magic sticks to resurrect my supposed friend’s dead wife to do… whatever it is she’s planning on doing that’s probably nothing good. I know I’m completely insane, and I mostly just hit bad people until they stop being bad.”

“It’s unfortunate that there is conflicting terminology when dealing with necromancy,” Vastarie says. “A lack of education on the matter, too often suppressed, as if that actually stops anyone.”

“Would simply hitting her repeatedly be sufficient?” I ask. “Would I need to destroy the Staff of Magnus? If that’s even possible? I really hope not. People seemed to think that magic stick was important or something.”

Most of the people in the room look aghast at the thought of destroying the magic stick.

“I would recommend hitting her repeatedly and attempting to retrieve—not destroy—the ‘magic stick’,” Vastarie says patiently. “If this does not solve the immediate problem, come to me and I’ll see what else may be done.”

I thank her for her advice, even if it was just to tell me to do what I was planning on doing anyway, and teleport my group back to Greenshade. We’ve got work to do, and most of it is probably going to involve hitting things.

There are two places in Greenshade named Verrant Morass and Dread Vullain and I am constantly mixing them up for some reason. (I’m still bad with names. Will wonders never cease?) We wind up at one or another of them and it probably doesn’t matter which one since we were going to go to both of them at some point anyway.

A Bosmer sitting by a campfire recognizes us as we approach and says Calm Indy told him about us. The unspecified forest further down the path is blighted and Calm Indy has told him to warn people away, but we’re obviously an exception to that, so we thank him and head on in.

Calm Indy meets us on the road, glad to see us since we’re obviously here to fix everything like usual, and tells us about the situation. The Veiled Bitch-Turned-Lich has been through here and done something to the forest causing the Bosmer in the area to become afflicted with a blight that has driven them mad. Now, see? This. This is the sort of magic I hate. She couldn’t just come in and kill people and turn them into undead, oh no, that’s not evil enough. She’s got to turn everything weird and shadowy and I can’t begin to fathom how or why.

“I’m pretty sure it can’t affect me, but what about my friends?” I ask. “And you?”

“I believe it’s our connection to the Green that lets Bosmer be affected,” Calm Indy says. “The Altmer and Khajiit should be unaffected. I don’t know about Gelur, though. Some Bosmer, like me, appear to be able to resist it. We should be cautious, and if you start to feel strange, say something and we’ll get you to safety.”

Gelur nods. “I’ll stay alert.”

I look down at the path to see Bosmer snarling like animals ready to attack us if we get near. “Merry, can you get that spell of yours going?”

“Turning an entire village to stone for their own good,” Merry says. “Again. This is number four… I never imagined I would wind up using this spell quite this much. I am ready. Let us get started.”

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We head through the village, freezing the feral Bosmer in place and giving Calm Indy a chance to activate some standing stones to do something or other. I grab a few interesting books along the way that no one is in a state of mind to complain about me grabbing.

Calm Indy and Gelur are alright for the moment, noting that they can feel something scrabbling over them trying to get its claws into them. They’re so far still holding it off, but best not waste time loitering about doing things like grabbing every interesting book I spot, because I’m apparently a kleptomaniac book thief.

Once the standing stones are active, Calm Indy realizes that something called the Eldest is corrupted and this is a really bad thing for the area. The Eldest is apparently a strangler vine, and a surprisingly small one at that. I’d generally expect really old things—well, non-people things—to be really big. Calm Indy says that normally, killing a plant would be considered a violation of the Green Pact, but he explains that there’s an exception for diseased plants to keep the blight from spreading.

“I’ve never heard anyone complain about me hitting plants that were trying to kill me,” I comment.

“This is Valenwood,” Eran says. “Half the plants here try to kill us whenever we get close to them.”

“Well, that’s true,” I say.

“The continued well-being of the Valenwood is what’s important,” Calm Indy says.

“Any in any case, you’re not the one that’s going to be killing a plant,” I say. “I am.”

Calm Indy says that he’ll be able to plant a new strangler vine to take the place of the Eldest. Obviously, this thing wouldn’t be oldest of anything anymore. It would, in fact, be Youngest for a while and then Second Youngest and eventually once every other strangler vine around has been killed trying to strangle some passing traveler, it will once again be the Eldest. I feel like the title was already a bit of a stretch to begin with. Stretchy like a strangler vine. Anyway, I plant an axe in the plant and retrieve its squishy heart, and no sooner do I have it in hand than a voice echoes through the cave to taunt us. The lights go out as we find ourselves back in the Shadow Wood.

“Why does this keep happening?” I mutter. “Are you alright, Gelur?”

Gelur nods, rubbing her head. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit of a headache. Don’t think I’m about to go nuts and attack anyone, but if I do, Merry can just turn me to stone, too.”

“Well, so long as we’re here, let’s go hit some things,” I say. “It will probably help somehow.”

“Yes, we may be able to stem the blight from this side,” Calm Indy says calmly, although his face is transparent. I guess he didn’t get pushed in as well?

“Are you okay?” I ask him. “Are you here with us?”

“I’m here,” Calm Indy says. “I’m still alright, but I’m using magic to conceal myself and keep the blight at bay. If you can destroy the corrupted tree spirits, I may be able to purge this section of the forest.”

“I do not even see the point of turning the forest into this Shadow Wood,” Merry comments. “It is not like the creatures here are any more aggressive than the creatures in Valenwood normally are, either.”

“Nor any more dangerous, for that matter,” I add. “Even the ones that think they are. Like this guy.”

We’re attacked by a shadowy figure that might be the one we fought before, except he’s shadowier now and not red. (Maybe it’s a different guy but it hardly matters, he’s just as annoying and not any stronger.)

We kick his ass and move on. That doesn’t even kill him either, as he keeps taunting us as we’re killing the crazed spriggans. The worst of it is that I can’t think up many good taunts to fire back at him because I don’t know anything about him.

“Oh yeah?” I retort. “Well you’re transparent!”

“What will it take to get that bastard to shut up?” Merry grumbles.

Having someone offer me a merciful death is just hilarious now. Once the tree spirits have been killed, we circle back around to find Calm Indy again and have to kill the shadowy fetcher a third time.

We speak with Calm Indy and get the strangler heart back to him, and emerge from the Shadow Wood back into normal sunlight. No idea how but I really don’t feel like questioning how this stupid magic works. And then the stupid shadowy asshole reappears and we have to kill him for a fourth time.

“For fuck’s sake, stay dead.”

“I really hope Estre proves easier to keep down,” Merry says with a sigh.

“Let’s just get moving before he respawns,” Eran says with an even heavier sigh.

We go through and start returning the Bosmer we’d turned to stone back into Bosmer again. They’re considerably less ragey now, but they’re still pretty dazed after their experience. Calm Indy thinks it will take them some time to recover, and fears that they might never be themselves again. I… don’t like to think about that sort of thing so I quickly breeze past to where we’re going next, which is west of here to the other location in northern Greenshade whose name contains a V in order to further stem the advances of the shadowy bullshit. I’m all for there being less bullshit in Tamriel that didn’t come out of livestock. The livestock kind is more useful.

I’m more inclined to go cut the head off the snake and head straight for Heck. Surely the shadowy bullshit will stop being bullshit when she dies, right? My theory on weird magic stopping when the right person is killed has proven right many, many times.

As we’re traveling through the valleys of northern Greenshade, we come upon a traveling Khajiit merchant being waylaid by bandits and skeevers, so we lend a hand as we’re passing by. His black horse dances in terror around the large rodents. It’s not carrying a saddle or pack, so I assume that it’s a pet and the merchant is just carrying a magic bag.

There’s a wayshrine between Verrant Morass and Dread Vullain, and while I’m still not sure which of them is which, I go up and light it. The area is swarming with Vinedusk Rangers.

The gates of Hectahame lie just to the north, shimmering with green magic, and one of the Rangers helpfully tells me that they can’t get in because the door is warded. I raise an eyebrow and look at the huge doors, set into a wall that’s barely bigger than the doors themselves. Around it, a white stone bridge crosses a gorge full of what appear from a distance to be racist bandit necromancers. Then again, I’d be surprised if anything other than racist bandit necromancers were in this particular situation. It would be highly confusing were the gates of an Ayleid ruin guarded by Orcs in jester outfits juggling pygmy mudcrabs.

“Neri, you’re high and rambling nonsense again,” Merry says.

“I’m going to jump over to that bridge and see if I can get in the doors.”

“That door is also warded,” Merry says with a sigh.

“We ought to go meet up with Indaenir in Dread Vullain,” Gelur says. “He’ll know what to do.”

“I suppose he’d better know the sequence we need to do things in,” I say. “I still think I can break in there, though.”

“It would probably take longer than dealing with whatever’s in Dread Vullain anyway,” Eran says. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll be hitting Estre soon enough.”