Intermission I, Part II: Salvation

By Dagoth Milos, Former High Priest of Kirinibbi

I have not looked upon the Betrayer’s City since before I saw the truth in Lord Dagoth, but I stand here held in the same awe as I did when I first looked upon it so many years ago. I was young then and I was blind. I had given of myself wholly to the Betrayer as I have given of myself wholly to the Dreamer, but I did not recognize the lies he spewed to us at the Ghostgate. He spoke to us and told us that he saw in each of us a brother with whom he shared a spirit, because we were all a people of excess. We drank to excess. We fought to excess. We even made love to excess. But we were happy. We were all so happy, even though we knew our lives could end at any moment. Even though we knew that it only took one mistake beyond the Fence for us to never see our brothers again. We knew it all and we didn’t care. We just lived and raided those citadels like a pack of cliffracers seeing an easy meal and it’s a wonder we all made it out as many times as we did, but somehow, we did. I used to think that was Vivec protecting us, but like with so many other things back then, I was wrong.

Vivec didn’t care about us beyond what we could do for him. He called us brother, but he didn’t love us like brothers. People don’t send their brothers on suicide missions day-in, day-out. They don’t ask them to take their knife and put it in their best friend’s heart because he got sick. They don’t ask the kinds of things that he asked us back then, but he did. The Betrayer did. He betrayed us all every time he sent us beyond the Fence, because he didn’t really care if we lived or died—it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had people willing to go beyond the Fence to put pressure on Lord Dagoth in hopes he’d ever get back to the Heart.

He won’t.

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I’ll die before I let him see the Heart again. I’ll give my life a hundred times to stop him from getting what he threw away so many of my brothers’ lives for. What he thought he threw away my life for.

The Buoyant Armigers as we called ourselves, we didn’t believe in that little experiment the Telvanni have—the Corprusarium. We believed that once you got sick, you got the knife. We’d stab you in the heart because we couldn’t risk you turning and being another Afflicted we’d have to put down later. It was never personal, but you can’t look at the man who has been both a lover and a brother to you and take a knife to his heart without it being personal, but that’s what we were told to do. That’s what he told us all to do. Because he was afraid. He was afraid that we might see the truth. That we might realize Lord Dagoth is not the monster he and the other false gods have painted him to be.

When I got sick, I fled beyond the Fence, because I was afraid. I was afraid to see the look on Llevos’ face if he was the one who found out—I couldn’t bare to see it, so I ran. And ran. And ran. And I thought I’d die beyond the Fence. I thought I’d die scared and alone, but I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t. I was saved. Lord Dagoth spoke to me and gave me strength; he saw within me fear and he spoke unto me words of hope so that I would hold on long enough and that I would seek him out beneath the Red Mountain.

When the Betrayer sought to have my brothers kill me, Lord Dagoth welcomed me into his family.

When the Betrayer sent me to die for him, Lord Dagoth held no malice towards me, for he knew I acted from ignorance.

When the Betrayer abandoned me, Lord Dagoth saved me.

And now I am being tested as I watch the sun set over the cantons of the Betrayer’s City. Lord Dagoth does not speak to me because he knows I am in turmoil over the words of the Abomination and wishes me to find my answers from within, but I struggle to have the same faith in myself as that Lord Dagoth holds in me, but I know that wherever I walk, I walk with him behind me. I am all that I am, because Lord Dagoth saved me and I shall glorify his name beneath the Betrayer’s City when I carve out the Abomination from this world in his name.

Hallowed be thy name, Lord Dagoth. May your teachings guide me through these coming trials for I know that so long as you are with me, I will be saved again and again

-Dagoth Milos, Former High Priest of Kirinibbi