Just outside of Deepwoods, we run across a human woman on the road looking for her Khajiit husband. She introduces herself as Liane. Breton? Imperial? Too short to be a Nord and doesn’t have the accent; she’s even shorter than me, so probably Breton. Her husband, Feluz, ate too many moon sugar candies and is now missing.

“I should have listened to my father,” Liane grumbles to herself. “I just wanted to see the world. I can’t believe I married a sugartooth.”

“I don’t see what the problem is,” I say, tossing a piece of moon sugar candy into my mouth. “But we’ll make sure he’s alright.”

“Wait, what’s that you’re eating?” Liane says, looking at my sweets suspiciously. “You mean to tell me High Elves eat those too?”

“Well, I’m definitely a high elf, but most High Elves are a little prudish,” I say in the understatement of the era.

Liane is still muttering unhappily to herself when we part ways. She could probably use some moon sugar candy herself.

Some ways down the road, I get distracted by the blue shaft of a Skyshard poking out from between some large roots. My friends don’t even bat an eye at this—it’s not like this one is off a cliff or in the middle of a pack of animals or anything actually dangerous. A wayshrine isn’t far away, so I go and light that as well.

In some weird way I feel like I’m accomplishing something just by absorbing Skyshards and lighting wayshrines in addition to solving the problems of literally everyone we run across. Okay, maybe not that sketchy fellow in Velyn Harbor who wanted us to find his unspecified goods in the middle of an invasion. I let him get his own damned unspecified goods. But dealing with the invasion was still helping him indirectly, so I guess it still counts.

I almost miss spotting a Khajiit perched on top of a large tree stump. It’s Feluz, the one Liane sent us after, and he’s quite distraught. Although relieved that Liane is alright, he lost their goods and they won’t be able to set up shop without them. And worse, he lost his pouch of moon sugar candy, although he insists that he’s learned his lesson and will never touch the stuff again.

“That’s unfortunate,” I say. “I try to keep a good supply of moon sugar around. Surprised? Yes, it keeps me sane and keeps the rages down. I’d probably have murdered a lot more people otherwise.”

Feluz is not exceptionally reassured. “Well, I suppose it’s fine if used in moderation…”

“I am continually amazed at how much he manages to accomplish while high,” Merry says with a sigh. “‘Sane’ is a rather relative term.”

With the help of Feluz’s unhelpful directions, we locate his moon sugar stash that he dropped in a pigpen that is for some reason in the middle of the forest and for some reason the pigs have not touched. There’s a small hut nearby that might belong to whoever owns the pigs, but there’s no sign of an owner nearby at the moment. The goods are down in a ravine past several pissy strangler vines that are too dumb to realize some meat carries axes.

Outside a cave, I spot a scroll labeled Ancient Scrolls of the Dwemer I-B, The Ransom of Zarek, Part 2. Summary: Marobar Sul’s work is still bullshit and even the publisher didn’t want to deal with it and had to be bribed into it. And he probably didn’t actually exist. I can blame the University of Gwylim Press for publishing this nonsense, so I make note of that to see if I need any of my own nonsense published. Where even is that, anyway?

I decide to poke inside the cave and immediately spot a ghost running by. Doing the sensible thing, I follow her, and she leads me to a painted vase by a skeleton with an inscription that it had been given as a gift to a woman leaving Vulkwasten and that it was a precious heirloom to keep with her and look upon it when feeling lost and alone. Really? It’s a fucking vase. The name on the vase indicates that it was given by someone named Ganwen, so I shove it in my pack and make a note to give it back and let them know their loved one died lost and alone in a cave and that their vase didn’t help. I probably won’t use those exact words.

The cave is also full of pumpkins, and a book talking about how some Bosmer ‘Apostates’ decided to hide in here and farm and didn’t want to be cannibals and they were upset that their ancestors agreed to the Green Pact but they hadn’t and were cursed for it. And so now this cave is full of undead pumpkin eaters. I swear, sometimes I just can’t make this shit up. There’s a Skyshard in the back of the cave next to a small waterfall trickling in from outside.

When we get back to where we’d found Feluz, Liane has also arrived and is berating him. We return the goods and the candy, which Liane is particularly unhappy about.

“Maybe you should be more supportive than judgmental,” Eran says. “Moon sugar is an important part of Khajiit culture and shaming him for it isn’t likely to help. Just make sure that he stays productive and nudge him if he gets distracted, like I have to do with this guy constantly.”

“We live in a stressful time,” Gelur adds. “Can’t really blame a guy too much for needing an outlet.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Liane begrudgingly thanks us for the help and heads off.

I spot a camp off the other side of the road, and approach. There’s several Bosmer there, some of them in poor shape, which Gelur goes to heal. A woman introduces herself as Tharuin the Melancholy, of all the cheerful names, who informs us that Falinesti isn’t here either and something weird is going on in the valley. She doesn’t know what, but mentions lightning, mysterious standing stones, and weird feelings of unease. Naturally, I agree to investigate.

The valley is full of Daedra. I really fucking hope this isn’t going to involve another trip into Oblivion. I even go so far as to ask some of the Dremora which realm they’re from and which Prince they work for, but they’re not feeling particularly talkative whilst trying to cut us apart.

As we’re traveling through the valley killing Dremora and Ogrims along the way, a projection of a bald Altmer woman contacts us and directs us to meet her in a cave across a small bridge.

Once we rendezvous with her in person, she introduces herself as Farandare and I hope she doesn’t mind being called Farry because I’m damned well calling her Farry. She believes that the walking tree city of Falinesti was drawn into Oblivion and wants to open a portal to rescue it.

“You’ve located Falinesti?” I ask. “You know exactly where it is? Which realm? Which region? Is it in Coldharbour? The Deadlands? The Shivering Isles? Is it in the fucking Myriad Realms of Revelry having an endless party with Sanguine?”

Farry looks increasingly uncertain with every word I say. “I know the city must be in Oblivion! I can feel it!”

“Look, saying something is in Oblivion is like saying something is on Nirn. You can’t just open a portal to Nirn in general and assume it’s going to point to the right spot. You might be aiming for Skyrim and wind up in Akavir for all you know. You know where I wound up last time I took a portal to ‘anywhere on Nirn’? Khenarthi’s Roost! Which was an absolutely pleasant place if it weren’t for the Sea Elves, but never mind that.”

“The veil between worlds is thin here and I could feel Oblivion on the other side,” Farry says.

“You should really just listen to him when he starts ranting about how much Oblivion sucks and you don’t want to mess with it unless you’re absolutely certain you know what you’re doing,” Eran puts in. “And possibly not even then.”

“I’ll rant at you a bit more once we deal with the immediate issue,” I say. “How do we get rid of the Daedra? Is there still an open rift somewhere?”

“Several,” Farry says. “My previous experiments left small holes between worlds. I’ll need help sealing them. But they’re small tears and they should close at a mortal’s touch.”

“Okay,” I say, then turn to my friends. “You guys close the rifts. I’ll get the Daedra’s attention long enough for you to do so.”

It’s a good thing she’s not telling me to do that myself, since I’m not a mortal exactly and that probably wouldn’t work. Stupid weird magic, anyway. Why is it always Oblivion? What is it about Oblivion that mages find so damned fascinating that they do stupid things with it?

Once that’s done, we return to find her in a different cave, still under the delusion that we’re actually going to help her open a huge gate to Oblivion here and still trying to perform her ritual. Around me, without even any input from me, my friends move to secure the room and make sure to block anything she might use to attempt to do so.

“No! You must help me!” Farry insists. “My husband was lost in the city and I have to find him! This will surely work this time!”

“Exactly which part of ‘fuck no’ did you not understand?” I say, putting my face in my palm. “Look. I believe you when you say that you believe that the walking city is in Oblivion.”

Beside me, Ilara snickers at the way I phrased that.

“However, I do not believe that you know what you’re doing here. In fact, the way you’re so adamant about it, about opening a portal to some unspecified location in Oblivion right here and right now, is suspicious in and of itself. You’re not trying to aim a portal at the walking tree to get it back. You’re being coerced into letting a powerful Daedra through, and it needs a bigger doorway than those rifts to manifest.”

Farry stares at me like she’d never thought of that. “But I could swear I heard my husband’s voice calling out to me for help…”

“Yeah,” I say. “Exactly. That’s exactly the sort of shit they do.”

Farry sways on her feet, reaches out a hand to steady herself before sitting down entirely. “I don’t—I don’t believe this.”

“Stop this,” I say. “I can put you in touch with some ‘finding shit in Oblivion’ experts, who might actually be able to pinpoint Falinesti and your husband rather than groping around blindly, although they’re a bit busy with the whole ‘saving the world from certain doom’ thing. They can probably spare a moment to take a look and offer advice.”

“That… that would actually help, thank you,” Farry says.

“If nothing else, they can make sure you don’t make a mess of things next time you decide to open a gate to Oblivion,” I say. “Just… don’t try to open an Oblivion gate unsupervised again. Or ever, really. It’s generally a good idea to have someone on hand who can tell you that the insanely dangerous thing you’re trying to do is insanely dangerous. Let’s finish cleaning up here and I’ll give you directions to Vastarie’s tower.”

“You know Vastarie!?” Farry says. “She’s a legend!”

“Yeah. She’s pretty cool. I’d teleport you there myself but my teleportation ability only works on me and my friends. Tell them Neri sent you and explain what happened here. They’ll understand. Just don’t get too caught up in the idea that Falinesti is actually in Oblivion. It might be, sure, but it might not. How much of your certainty was because of Daedric influence? For all I know, that Khajiit thief god, Rajhin, stole it and hid it on one of the moons or something.”

Once we’ve made sure there are no further Daedra or holes in reality at the Falinesti Summer Site, my party parts ways with Farry, who is heading west toward Velyn Harbor while we’re continuing east.

“I hope they don’t get annoyed at you for inflicting that fool on them,” Merry comments dryly.

I shrug. “They can find something useful to put her to and keep her out of trouble if nothing else. Falinesti’s been missing for a while but Dark Anchors are dropping now and they don’t appear to be connected. Maybe they just packed up to wait until Tamriel got sane again, though I doubt they’d have voluntarily left without telling anyone. Either way, best put her somewhere that she can help instead of making a mess because I damned well don’t trust her not to try opening another Oblivion gate the minute we walk away and I don’t want to have to behead her to get her to knock it off.”

Eran grimaces. “Yes, best try to avoid unnecessary decapitation.”