Along the road west of the wayshrine near Heck, we run across a dejected Bosmer slumped at a rough campsite. He, like every other Bosmer we’ve run across in the wilderness, is bad at hunting and wants us to kill some big, mean cat for him. Fine, it’s not like we had anything better to do than track animals halfway across Valenwood.

We track down the big white lion and kill it. When we do, a transparent blue stag (an aspect of Hircine, I think) appears and tells us how impressive it was that we killed the cat, and that we should tell Haras he can rest now. (I guess that was the name of the guy. I didn’t ask.)

We retrace our steps (more or less) and find Haras again, who reveals that he’d once made a deal with Hircine to hunt his finest beast (and if that was Hircine’s finest beast, I’ll eat my boots). Hircine gave him some sort of ‘blessing’ that ensured that he couldn’t die until it was dead, or even sleep. He hasn’t even been able to close his eyes in quite some time. Damn. Kids, don’t make deals with Daedra.

I spot a Skyshard at the base of a cliff behind some tents of unfamiliar design, this time fortunately already at the bottom of the cliff rather than the top. Eran’s rule of “don’t stand anywhere near cliffs” does not apply when at the bottom of them.

A bit further along the cliff is a cave entrance. Not far inside lies a note next to a dead body. This hapless adventurer had apparently taken a contract to collect mushrooms from this cave, and had failed at it pretty badly. We head in and kill some bandits, collect the required ingredients, and absorb a Skyshard in a minecart. Simple enough. In and out. I even find a copy of Antedecents of Dwemer Law by one of the tents nearby.

There’s a wayshrine nearby, which I light and take the opportunity to make a quick hop over to Woodhearth to deliver some fresh mushrooms to a Dunmer who believes he ought to have been born a Khajiit. The potion does not turn him into a Khajiit, but an Argonian. Close, but so very far away. I sell him some extra ingredients I’d picked up in case he wants to try tweaking the formula, and wish him good luck.

Back up north, we come upon a hastily erected wall of timbers with wooden spikes sticking out of the ground near them to form the sort of blockade that would only keep out zombies or particularly stupid Daedra. Obviously, this was not the work of Bosmer, and the sight of High Elf tents inside lends proof to that.

A wounded Altmer (that Gelur quickly starts healing) shows surprise that we made it past the undead.

“That problem has been taken care of,” I say. “What’s the situation here?”

The High Elf scout rambles something that I only bother to catch the words “Daedra” and “Ayleid ruin” and something about a ritual that needs to be stopped. (The place is called Moonhenge, but that’s obviously not the original Ayleid name.)

“Right, say no more,” I say as I pull out Wobbly. “Let’s go hit some Daedra, my friends!”

Not pausing to waste any more time, we cut a path through the Daedra as we make our way into the ruins. The ritual sites are pretty obvious, being glowing circles around skulls attached to poles with screaming people bound to them.

A hiding sergeant tells us hurriedly about how a captain and some other troops are trapped on the other side of a portal. A sinking feeling comes upon me as I look upon the wide, flat part of the ruins that appears to have acquired some Coldharbour-like decorations and stone protrusions that definitely do not belong on Nirn. There’s a portal here, and we’re going to need to close it from the other side, the sergeant tells us.

“Well, fuck,” I say.

“That’s one way of putting it,” the sergeant says.

“Could you hold onto this, then?” I say, handing Nanwen’s sword to him. “There’s a ghost bound to it we haven’t been able to free yet and I promised him not to get his soul trapped in Oblivion.”

The sergeant nods matter-of-factly, as if this is hardly the weirdest thing he’s dealt with today, and takes the sword for safekeeping.

We have to break some crystals and kill some Daedra to unseal the portal and I’m trying very hard not to think too hard about what we’re going to need to do here. I step through the portal before I can give myself any more anxiety about it.

Although the area on the other side of the portal resembles Coldharbour, I don’t think this is an area directly connected to Coldharbour proper. There are plenty of disconnected islands floating in Oblivion, and this one is as much ‘Ayleid ruin’ as ‘Daedric shithole’.

Not far from the portal, we encounter an Altmer mage who recognizes me from Firsthold, along with a badly wounded soldier on the ground that Gelur quickly goes over to try to save. I’m pretty sure I’m considerably more memorable than most of the people I’ve met, and the mage isn’t terribly offended that I have to ask her to remind me what her name is (Sinien).

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“On the bright side,” I say, more to reassure myself than anything else, “at least we’re not in a prison in Coldharbour. So far as patches of Oblivion go, this isn’t too awful. I’d still prefer the Shivering Isles as a vacation spot, though. Much more scenic.”

“Neri-do, would you give advice on fighting Daedra?” Ilara asks, very obviously distracting me from my own emotional problems.

“Of course,” I say. “Most things aren’t too smart. Dremora you have to treat like extra-proud Orcs who know they’ll respawn if they die. Clannfears, though, you’ve just got to watch their movements. See when they’re going to pounce, when they’re going to swing their tail. Imagine a circle of red over the area their attack will fall into, and don’t be in the red circle when it lands.”

We make our way through the Daedric Ayleid ruins and find the people who were lost here, who all recognize us considerably more than I recognize them. I vaguely recall the Khajiit as the one we met at Marbruk who was complaining about the stubborn Bosmer in Bramblebreach, and fortunately him speaking in the third person lets me recall that his name is Hazazi and I can pretend I didn’t forget it.

We also need to kill some overseers to collect some keys to activate some pillars, you know, the usual sort of nonsense. That part’s not especially interesting. If I were to describe every battle I have in detail, it would take me until the next era to get it all out and you’ll have died of either boredom or old age by that point.

The pillars open a portal to a mirror of the Ayleid ruin, where the sigil stone is located, which I grab after beating up one of those big snake Daedra.

That’s the point when the mage informs me that someone will need to destroy the ruin on this side so that the Daedra don’t just use it to open another portal. Which can’t be done with the ruin on the Tamriel side because she’s afraid her exploding-things scroll might blow up half of Valenwood and isn’t that concerned about blowing up half of Coldharbour by accident. She wants me to choose someone to stay behind and sacrifice themselves for it.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to point at someone I like and tell them they have to die needlessly.”

“Your help is needed in Tamriel far more than any of ours,” the mage argues, as if that’s much of an argument.

“I’m not leaving anyone in this place,” I say firmly. “I’ll use the scroll. If I don’t find my way out soon, my friends can contact someone to extract me. We’ve got an acquaintance who can open portals to Coldharbour who should be able to find me, and had better if he wants me to do his next stupid quest.”

Why do I always find myself doing something heroic like this?

The mage tells me that a rift might form that I can escape through, but I’m not banking on it. The others make for the portal, Ilara pausing to give a concerned look back toward me before Eran takes her arm and hurriedly drags her through.

I’m less confident on this than I made myself sound for the sake of getting everyone out of here safely, but I wasn’t about to ask anyone else to sacrifice themselves for this. The worst that happens to me is that I get stuck in Coldharbour again for a while. Not a big deal. Not a big deal at all.

I shove Wobbly into my pack and use the scroll, and it vanishes in a burst of magicka. Everything starts shaking. Rocks begin falling as the ruin starts to break itself apart.

I look around for one of these rifts to see if by chance I can still get out of here. Completely calmly.

I lose my footing. I slip, tumbling off the island straight down into the waters of Oblivion.

When I say ‘the waters of Oblivion’, I don’t mean it’s literally water. It’s technically azure plasm. The stuff that makes up the body of a Daedra or Vestige, and it’s dense enough not to sink into. Floating in it is mildly more pleasant than being blown up, and I’m still not sure what will happen to me if I die in Oblivion, whether my body will be reborn in light at an Aedric wayshrine or reform out of azure plasm.

Praying can’t help me here but I pray anyway. Meridia? Hermaeus Mora? Sheogorath!?

“I see you, Nerevar,” echoes Molag Bal’s voice from nowhere.

“I wasn’t really hiding,” I say.

“You thought you could escape me.”

“Not really, no,” I say. “I just thought it would be fun to go hit stuff. It gets tiresome having nothing to hit but Daedra and Soul-Shriven.”

A deep, rumbling chuckle sends shivers through my soul.

“Did you now.”

“Look, while I always love the witty banter and everything, can I just take a plasm nap? It’s been a very long time-period and I’m exhausted.”

None of that happened. The nightmare flashed before my eyes in an instant.

“How many have you killed in my name?”

That definitely didn’t happen and I am not Molag Bal’s champion. He definitely didn’t release me just because he knew I would go and cause no end of havoc in the world whether I intended to or not.

He fucks with everyone’s heads. And I should have realized coming here without Varen distracting him was a poor idea.

Music jolts me back to reality. I’m still on the platform being pelted with stones, and I’d frozen in place for a moment.

“Well, if you stop distracting me, I’ll go and kill plenty more.”

I didn’t say that. I could hardly even open my mouth.

I spot a rift ahead of me and force my body to move, leaping toward it.

The ground cracks and tilts, and I’m falling. My feet can’t get purchase against the moving ground.

Something nudges me.

I tumble straight into the rift, and in a blinding, shuddering flash, Coldharbour has been replaced with Valenwood again. I land hard on the ground, tumbling into the grass and curl up into a fetal position.

Someone calls my name, and I feel the tingling of Restoration magic against my skin, but it’s not an injury in my skin and there’s nothing Gelur’s magic can do to help. There’s nothing anyone can do to help.

I find myself sitting in front of a campfire with a cup of cooling mint tea with moon sugar in it in my hands before I really realize I’m back on Nirn and just remembering what warmth is again.

“Ilara-daro told you we should not have left him,” a voice hisses sharply off to the side.

Full of moon sugar and exhausted, I lay down to sleep. I dream in warm green rather than cold blue. I dream of a childhood on an island of flowers and sunshine, and wish it had been real and not just a dream.

“You helped me,” speaks a voice in my dreams.

I recognize the voice. Ari. The Wilderqueen. But there’s nothing but a rustling of leaves cradling me in comfort.

“You are safe. You’ve helped me solidify my strength and brought peace to Greenshade. Let me help you too.”

No nightmares come tonight.