A small crowd of very important people has gathered near the gates of Heck. Queen Ayrenn, the Mane and his Speaker, the Battlereeve, the treethane of Woodhearth, some Eyes of the Queen including Razum-dar, and quite a lot of assorted Vinedusk Rangers and Dominion soldiers. And Prince Naemon, reluctantly, sourly, with the same sort of sour expression I used to see on him back in Auridon, but this time I know he’s got a much better reason to look sour.

They’d all seen fit to show up while I was napping and continued to let me nap even when they’re obviously champing at the bit to get going. After those dark dreams, I almost wish that they’d woken me up. My mind is weary but my body is ready to fight, and destroy this bitch who wants to ruin my Valenwood.

The Veiled Lich, by all reports, is inside Heck and has been using the stolen magic stick to corrupt the place, fuck with the wards, and raise an army of undead. Needless to say, none of that is good news.

The problem, and the reason why they’re all just standing around out here, is that anyone who tries to get close has their mind corrupted and goes feral, even the non-Bosmer. Calm Indy thinks I have the best chance of anyone here to resist it, but even my own friends are going to have to stay behind on this one. Raz isn’t letting even himself near this place, never mind his little sister.

“Are you sure I’m not going to go insane in there too?” I wonder.

“You’re already insane,” Merry says.

I smirk. “You think my current insanity will protect me from any new insanity?”

“I believe that if anyone has a chance to remain productively insane, it is you,” Merry says.

“Well, thank you for your vote of confidence,” I say. “I promise I will make every attempt to kick the ass of the one responsible for this shit before I lose whatever is left of my mind.”

Calm Indy’s big plan is to send the two of us into the Shadow Wood and slip by that way. I’m less than thrilled about that plan, but if that’s what’s necessary, then so be it. We’ve already wasted enough time here. He does… something, and the light shifts, pushing us back into the darkness.

Everyone is visible from here only as glowing figures, as if they were spirits. I don’t know why I didn’t see any of them like this the last time I was in here. Maybe it’s because Calm Indy brought us here deliberately this time? I’m not going to question it terribly much. I just want to get this over with.

I didn’t want to be back in this place, or… is it really a place if it’s an overlay on a place? I’d rather not think too hard on it. I’d rather not be here, in this sideways, backwards place, and hopefully this will be the last time. Hopefully once we’re done here, this will no longer be a place or thing.

Inside the gates, we pass by the glowing figures of racist bandits and undead. Calm Indy doesn’t think I’d be capable of slaughtering them in the real world, physical world, whatever, and I have to admit that even I would have trouble with so many of them by myself. I could probably do it, though, if not by violence but by stealth or trickery. This is working, though, and they don’t see us at all. I’ll not lament the missed opportunity too badly. Most likely they’re all going to wind up dead one way or another shortly anyway.

We make it to the inner set of doors and slip inside. Somehow nobody notices the doors opening, either, but maybe only the doors on this side are opening? Whatever, it hardly matters. The important part is that we’re inside now. We head into Heck, and it hardly seems like we’re inside at all. Half the ceiling is hidden by shifting dark fog, concealing the stone beyond, and like most of the Ayleid ruins in Valenwood, the forest has been steadily reclaiming the land and consuming the old, broken white stone.

Calm Indy says we need to activate some ancient Ayleid pedestals to get past a barrier Estre has put up over the door leading deeper into the ruins, which requires getting some magic rocks scattered about the ruins, because of course it does. Why does it always come down to collecting stupid Ayleid magic rocks, anyway?

I go into an arboretum full of pissy spriggans, hack my way through them and pick up the magic rock, shadowier than Ayleid magic rocks usually are. Usually they’re all glowing blue, but this one is black as the Void and surrounded by wispy shadows. Touching it brings me back to the real world and Estre’s voice echoes from nowhere, taunting me about how awesome she is now that she’s dead. Funny, first she kept trying to send us in but now that we’re here and she doesn’t want us to be, she’s sending us back out. I take that as a victory in and of itself.

Heck is not much less creepy in the real world than in the shadow world, even if it’s slightly greener. This might be a testament to how messed up it already is. The sickening feeling in the air around me hasn’t changed.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Once the crystal is in its pedestal, Calm Indy does something to make it glow blue again. We’d all be completely lost if it weren’t for this mer. Salvation isn’t something my axes can bring. Only destruction of the corrupt. Maybe that’s enough to start. It’s all I can do to keep focused on what I’m doing as Calm Indy sends me back into the shadow realm.

After I retrieve the crystal from the armory, I get thrown back into the real world again, and Estre taunts me about the Heart already being corrupted and that there’s nothing I can do now. Fuck that. I bring this one back to Calm Indy as well, and he sends me back into the shadow world one more time.

One last crystal retrieved from the library and the barrier is down. I grip my axe in hand and push forward.

Estre looks nothing like she did in life. Vastarie basically just looked like a normal mer with uncommonly pale skin and glowing blue eyes. This creature that Estre’s corpse became barely even looks like a mer anymore. She floats two feet above the ground and a tattered robe with chains covers her dessicated body. Glowing blue eyes pin me in their gaze beneath a crown because of course she has to have a crown. She’s wielding the magic stick that’s supposed to be able to suppress magic, but lucky for me, I don’t rely on magic.

“The false Queen’s pawn, come to die,” the Veiled Lich says. “Your cause is doomed. You stand before the true Queen of Alinor. Kneel before me and I will make your death swift!”

“Does that line seriously ever work on anyone?” I retort. “You can torture me if you like but I will never submit. Meet Wibbly!” I hold aloft my axe.

“You named a fine piece of Altmer craftsmanship Wibbly?” She sidesteps as I lunge at her. “Truly your depravity knows no bounds.”

“As much as I enjoy trading banter while trying to kill someone, I’m going to have to stop you. Valenwood is my home and I will not let you bring it to harm.”

“It’s too late for you and your precious forest. Look behind me! The Heart of Valenwood is already corrupted. Your forest will perish, and shadows will consume all that you love!”

“You know, I don’t get you,” I say. “First you worshipped Mehrunes Dagon. Then you were going to switch to Molag Bal because you wanted to get into Manny’s robes or something. And now, what, Nocturnal? Is all this shadowy shit Nocturnal’s doing? Or what? I don’t understand! Why did you do this?”

She gives me no explanation and keeps summoning more undead, so I charge up Blinky into Empowering Sweeps and blast them with circles of light as soon as they try to stand up. The light has seen me safely through this far and right now I’d like nothing better than to shine a light in the eye of this shadowy bitch.

She goes down eventually, and I grab the Staff of Magnus and shove it into my pack where it’s safe, just to make sure she’s not going to get up again and go ‘Hah! Fooled you!’

Calm Indy looks toward the trees at the far end of the large room. “We’re too late. The corruption has already spread deep into the Heart of Valenwood. There has to be something I can do. I’m going to try drawing the darkness out into myself.”

“Should I be concerned about you turning into a monster, too?” I ask.

“No… I don’t think so, anyway,” Calm Indy says calmly. “But if that should happen, you need to be prepared to strike me down. Most likely, though, I’ll simply die. I have to try, though.”

The entwined trees are blackened and sickly-looking. Calm Indy lifts a hand toward them and green magic swirls around them. The heavy darkness in the air begins to lighten slowly before lifting entirely. The trees start glowing blue and bursting with sudden flowers and leaves, and Calm Indy collapses.

The Mane and the Bosmer Eye of the Queen, Cariel, come in, with my friends close on their heels. They pause in their tracks when they see Calm Indy’s body.

“The wards all came down and the darkness parted,” Eran says. “What happened here?”

“Oh… Indaenir,” Cariel says, looking down at his body. “This isn’t right. He can’t—he can’t simply die like this.”

I try to explain what happened but I don’t really understand it myself, and settle for, “He sacrificed himself to get that shadow shit out of the trees.”

Glowing green leaves suddenly start swirling around the body. Everyone steps away in surprise as Calm Indy takes a deep breath, opens his eyes, and stands up again. Cariel exclaims that Calm Indy has been chosen as the next Silvenar. I don’t know how she figures that, but I guess most people don’t spontaneously start glowing green and come back to life.

“Silvenar?” I repeat.

“Y’ffre has chosen him!” Cariel says. “It has to be so! I have to tell Raz.” She runs off, and the Mane also runs off to inform the Queen, leaving me alone with my friends and Calm Indy.

“Silvenar or otherwise, are you alright?” I ask.

“I think so,” Calm Indy says. “I feel incredible. I felt like I was falling, but the Green picked me up again…”

“You really are the new Silvenar,” Gelur breathes, bowing toward him. “I am honored to have witnessed this.”

“And how about you, Neri?” Eran asks. “You’ve been more than a little frayed lately.”

“Better,” I say. “I think I’ll prefer to keep things a little lighter from here on out if at all possible. Maybe go do something simple like find some Orcs who need to be hit until they behave.”

We head back outside and meet up with all the very important people who very importantly didn’t really do terribly much. I have no idea why they all felt it necessary to be here. Queen Ayrenn takes the opportunity to be the first to bow to the new Silvenar, and everyone else follows suit, some more awkwardly than others. Even Prince Naemon, hesitantly, reluctantly.

With the situation resolved, I return the Staff of Magnus to Queen Ayrenn, and tell her “don’t fucking lose it this time” except more politely than that.

Later, back at camp, Naemon approaches me and asks, “Did she say anything?”

“She said quite a lot of things, most of them not particularly elucidating,” I say. “Mostly just ranting about how it was hopeless, we’d already lost, et cetera.”

“Did she say anything about me?” Naemon asks quietly.

I frown faintly, then shake my head. “Not a word. She didn’t mention you at all.”

Naemon sighs heavily and looks down. “I don’t know what I was expecting, or hoping for. She’s gone, and if there was anything left of her in that thing, it wasn’t a part of her that cared about me or anyone else.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.