A Sword for the Nine: A Skyrim AAR

[Alwyn]

Welcome back, it's great to see Tertius back in action!

I enjoyed his investigation of Alva, and what follows. I like the way that Tertius makes sense of in-game events such as the presence of the Frostbite Spiders in caves occupied by other, more dangerous creatures.

[TheKnightofDay]

Chapter 12: Of Beauty and Love
1^st of Hearthfire, 4E201

I awoke the morning after rather early, just at daybreak. I had felt completely recharged from the all-day investigation I pulled yesterday, and I ate a large breakfast of bread, butter, apples, and berries to make up for the meals I missed sleeping through the day before. I gathered my things and donned my armor, quickly paying my fee for the day to Jonna before that same Orc bard began to start up his symphony of cacophony again just in time. I went out to the edge of town to a small farm where I left Julia. I paid the owners for her care the past two nights and locating the next shrines on my pilgrimage I mounted Julia and sped off down a game trail to the coast. As I approached the Sea of Ghosts, the climate began to get colder, just like it had looking for the Hidden Chapel in Haarfingar several days ago. Banks of snow and dark grey crags of stone began to replace the swamps that dominated the area around Morthal, and deathly cold gusts of wind started to pick up, cutting deep below the skin. I reached into my knapsack and swaddled my shoulders and lap with a fur mantle to keep the cold out and continued on my way.

I passed through the border between Hjaalmarch and the Pale soon after that, pausing to look at the massive towers of conifers that dotted the otherwise barren landscape of these northern wastes. They seemed to be lances shooting deep into the blue sky, with their limbs like banners of green needles and white snow wreathing their shafts. It reminded me of the Great Forest to the west of the City Isle. There the redwoods towered high, sheltering all who walked under those wooden pillars from sun and downpour alike. The pines of Skyrim had a similar aura, though they were smaller than these redwoods, and even with that said I heard rumors still that the great trees of Valenwood are taller still, something I could scarcely imagine is possible, even though I have seen structures like the White Gold Tower that are much larger.
“One day, I’d have to visit Valenwood, perhaps see Elden Root at the height of spring…if the Thalmor are ever driven out of there,” I thought to myself chuckling. My laugher soon subsided to dark thoughts though, and I pressed on the trail with a more melancholy mood. “If…” I repeated to myself.





The winds howled around me, and flurries of snow were picked up and sent into my face, burning my cheeks with a piercing chill as the flakes landed on them. I passed by an ancient Nordic barrow to my right and could feel the ground pick up in elevation. I started to guide Julia up near the edge of a cliff, from which I could barely see ahead for more than half a mile: a white-out raged just ahead, and it cloaked what was behind it, though the sky above was clear save for a scattering of clouds. Soon, off in the distance, I could see the outline of a stone platform that jutted up to the edge of the cliff. I took my reins and brought Julia into a gallop. As I neared the platform, I could begin to make out a tall statue with a small stone table erected before it. After a few minutes I had reached the bottom of the platform, a set of stairs was carved into the stone, and above I could finally see that the statue I had seen was that of a young woman in the nude holding a massive in one hand next to her long flowing hair. It was the Shrine of Dibella, Goddess of Beauty and Art. I knelt before the finely carved Shrine, fur cloak still around my shoulders, and began my prayers, chanting the Command of Dibella: “Open your heart to the noble secrets of art and love. Treasure the gifts of friendship. Seek joy and inspiration in the mysteries of love.” In moments I was greeted by the familiar wash of white as my consciousness faded away from Tamriel. Soon I was hailed by a voice more melodious and beautiful than I had yet encountered during my visions at the Shrines. It sounded like the soft babbling of a waterfall, and the rustling of fir trees, like the ones I used to play under in the Colovian Highlands as a child.
“I am the Exemplar of Dibella. Your piety for the Nine serves as an example to many, and the reverence you have shown in the worship of Dibella pleases the Goddess. However, you do not understand the many blessings of beauty and the arts, for as a warrior you have occupied yourself in the defense of these things without knowing why it is worth your protection. Behold, the Lesson of Dibella.”





The blankness of my vision began to reassemble itself into a sight which I have yearned to see for three years: the streets of the Imperial City: it was the Market District, with the great statue of the Emperor Magnus Septim standing proud before an alabaster colonnade supporting a copper roof, as is common in the city. The streets were full of porters hauling carts of goods, vendors shouting slogans to passersby, and jesters and musicians performing on street corners. The red dragon banners of the Empire floated lazily in the breeze from the rafters of the storefronts, and the sun was shining brilliantly. Then I could see my younger self, just fourteen years old by the looks of it, in a handsome blue linen shirt, white trousers, and pigskin shoes: my market day outfit, I remembered. Beside me was my childhood friend Appius in a blue and green outfit and a Dunmer girl in a red silk dress, I recognized her immediately, it was Sheliah Llandu, the elf-girl I fell in love with during my last few years at my boarding school, the same one I had saved from that Morang Tong assassin at the Waterfront.
I started laughing. “Ah, happier days! I always loved going by the Market District in my Sundas Best after temple-service with my friends, just to see the vibrant colors brought from across the Empire, the sounds of music both familiar and strange, and the smells of food and spices that I would never again smell the like of in the northern provinces.”
“Indeed, there are few occasions more pleasing to the devout of Dibella than Sundas in the Market District,” the Exemplar said in a happy tone, “such a display of beauty, though seen perhaps once in a life time for the humble rustics of Tamriel, is a routine for the merchants and performers of the Imperial City. Their business is music and flavors, poetry and art: color, melody, and laughter are their currency. It is something both common and noble alike appreciate, as you have seen before.”

As if on cue, trumpets began to blare as the Exemplar finished her thought. My friends and I noticed this and stepped aside from the main thoroughfare. Soon, soldiers in silver plate, riding beautiful black horses began to pass by, holding lances with red pennants attached to them. A crier on foot plotted along on the street, announcing: ‘make way, make way for the Emperor!’ Soon, a mahogany carriage laced in gold trim could be seen, its top open for the world to see. Sitting there, in regal robes, was Titus Mede II, his grey beard wrinkled in a soft smile, alongside relatives who were dressed in burgundy silk. Crowds began to gather on the sides of the street. Children were leaping with joy, women were waving scarves and handkerchiefs, and men were shouting blessings of health and long life to him. The Emperor waved in response to this adoration. A few merchants attempted to get near the carriage, but were barred by the guards, until Titus recognized a few of them and let them by. One brought freshly baked bread, another a fine bottle of Cyrodiilic brandy, and yet another a bouquet of flowers for the Empress Consort, who was absent. The Emperor gave to each of these a sizeable velvet purse of coin, and with similar blessings dismissed these merchants amicably, as if they were close friends.
Memories darted through my mind. “I do remember this, it’s the only time I’ve ever seen the Emperor. He was on his way to the Imperial Legion compound to inspect a newly mustered legion before deploying them to the Valenwood frontier. Long I have remembered this day.”
“Yes, believe me the Gods are aware that this was one of your treasured memories,” the Exemplar replied, “but such an occasion was even more of a boon to someone you met later that day.”

My focus returned to my younger self, as my friends were exalting in the sight of the imperial procession. My attention was darting around the scene as I surveyed the streets, and my eyes soon rested on the sight of an old man in sackcloth, standing on the edge of the street. He was a gaunt looking Imperial, withered by age and perhaps hunger, but despite this I could see him standing as tall as he could, rendering a Legion salute as the procession went by. The Emperor could see him there, and he returned the salute, and tossed him a purse of coin as well. It fell a few paces in front of the old man, but for some reason the man did not register this, he still stood there, holding his salute. It was then that I noticed the cataracts in his eyes: he was blind, and no doubt the noise of the crowd drowned out his sense of sound as well.

My younger self beckoned his friends to follow him, and once the procession was well on its way down the street, I crossed over to the old man. He was still holding his salute, but his body was quivering: he could not bear to stand like that any longer. He nearly fell, but Appius and I went to his side and caught him, then slowly let him down on the stoop of a storefront. “Ah, Stendarr bless ye, I was worried I’d fall back on my head, and that would be that,” he said in a smile that revealed some missing teeth. I picked up the coin purse that the Emperor had tossed to the ground as Appius dusted the man off, and Sheliah gave him a drink of water from a flask that she kept in her pockets.
“The Emperor tossed a purse of Septims to you from his carriage, did you notice it?” I asked.
The old man smiled. “Did he now? Divines bless his heart. I care not what curses others may say behind his back, he is a true and pious man. I fought at his side in the Great War, you know.”
My friends and I looked astonished. He seemed much too old and decrepit to be a veteran of a conflict that happened only a few decades ago.
“But you look so old: if you fought in the war, you must have been in your sixties at least,” I intoned.
The old man began to frown. “Alas, that isn’t exactly true, in reality I was just twenty at the war’s onset, and twenty-four when the Battle of the Red Ring took place.”
Appius looked puzzled, but then a revelation took root into his mind. “You were hit by a Drain Life spell during the war, weren’t you,” he asked. Appius was familiar with the magical arts, and had a mind to train to become a mage in the Arcane University one day.
The old man nodded. “Aye, that is indeed my wound, it was during our reconquest of the Imperial City from the Aldmeri. My comrades and I stormed the Green Emperor Way, fighting near the base of the White Gold Tower before the Emperor stormed inside and laid that worm Lord Naarifin low. There were many elves there, but our strength at arms was prevailing over them, when suddenly we were waylaid by an Altmer High Mage. He had some strong, eldritch powers at his call, for out of his hands shot a pale purple lighting that struck my comrades, and they crumbled to dust and bones before my very eyes. He was sucking their youth, indeed their very life out of them, and he had nearly gotten me when a lucky arrow, sent as if by the Gods themselves, struck him in the face, killing him. But it was too late: I looked as if I were in my sixties, like you said, and my sight, as a result of the spell, was taken from me. I laid there in the gardens near the tower for what seemed like days before I was found by some healers after the battle. They healed my wounds, but they could not reverse the spell, and from that day onward I was nothing but the burden of the chantries. My family could not recognize me, nor my friends, and I lived off the charity of the priests and priestesses of the Divines.”

Tears welled in his eyes, and pity had struck my friends hard. The old man clenched and released then clenched his hands again, as if trying to grasp some phantom object.
“Most of all, I miss my fiddle. I played that instrument since I was just a boy, and my songs were the talk of all the camp whenever I was on campaign. Were I to hold another in my hands again…”
Appius and I looked at each other, then looked at Sheliah, and then, with a nod, I went off into the market on my own while my friends remained at the man’s side. I returned moments later with a small drum, a flute, and a gorgeously carved violin. I kept the drum for myself: I didn’t have much dexterity when it came to instruments, unlike with swords, but I could keep up a rhythm with a drum. I gave the flute to Appius, who used to carve his own when we were kids. I handed the violin and its bow to the old man, who began stuttering in disbelief.
“By the Gods… is it really…”
Tears began to well in his eyes again, though these were tears of joy. He placed the violin beneath his jaw, put the bow to the strings, and began to play a few chords. The first couple were rough, but soon the skill of his fingers returned to the old man, and he began playing a tune that would put the professional troupes of the Arena District to shame. A smile broke across the old man’s face.
“I…I don’t know what to say, my young friends. I have nothing to repay the favor…” he said.
“Let us play with you, I can sing, and my friends can accompany your instrument with theirs” Sheliah spoke up, for the first time.
The old man looked in her direction with a bolt of curiosity shooting through his face. “Your accent, a Dark Elf woman eh? I had a Dark Elf in my contubernium in the Legion. He taught me a few songs from Morrowind that I could play with him, and what other instruments do we have…a flute and a drum. Oh I’ve got just the thing! I think the lass will pick up on it, the other of you two, just follow my lead.”

The man started mumbling the timing to himself, and then began to play an exotic tune. Sheliah recognized it immediately, chuckled to herself, and started to sing in a clear soprano a voice so beautiful one could swear that they were in the land of the Dunmer itself, face to face with the Red Mountain. It was a mournful song about the Red Year, with plenty of lamentations about the loss of Vvardenfell and her grey ashlands. Appius and I listened a while to pick up the tune, and then joined in ourselves, and we made no small contribution ourselves, though this song like most Dunmer lays were unfamiliar to us. A crowd of curious market-goers began to gather around us, and listened to our little quartet with great curiosity. When the song ended, we were greeted with great applause and requests for an encore. And so, we picked up the same song again, and at the end of it a greater crowd had gathered. Someone had brought a burlap sack with them, and placed on the ground with a couple of septims in it, and soon others in the crowd began to chip in a few more coins as well.

The old man reveled in the cheers and the applause; he could hardly stop smiling. “My my,” he said after playing the Dunmer song a second time, “we need another number. Say, young lady, I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard the shanties they play out on the Bravil quays, my hometown. My, do the merchants and the fishermen play a lively tune there.”
Sheliah smiled. “Of course! My father is a merchant himself, I’ve accompanied him to Bravil on several occasions. He always found the atmosphere of that town so putrid, but I’ve always liked the people I met, and the songs I heard there.”
“Well then, I’ve got more than a few of those up my sleeves. From the top!”

The old man picked up now in an upbeat melody, one that made my feet tap with the urge to dance. Appius and I accompanied the song with much more skill than the previous song: it was something more familiar for Imperials such as us. It sung cheerfully of the long Niben, of drunken sailors, and the mischief of mermaids. People in the crowd cheered at the start, and in the middle of the song, a Khajiit and an Imperial in sailor’s garb came to the front and started to dance along to the shanty together, adding to the spectacle with applause and laughter from the audience. When the song ended, our quartet and the dancers took a bow amidst even louder applause. More people came forth to pitch in more coin to the already growing sack of gold. Then, out from the crowd, a Redguard man in a burgundy turban came forth to us.
“If I may take your leave, old master,” the Redguard said to the old man, “I wish to contribute a song or two myself. I have more than a few songs to sing that my people would play during long treks across the Alik’r.”
The old man chuckled, “Ah, another to join our merry band! But I’m not sure how to fit you in, my Redguard friend, we already have a singer, and she’s a mighty lovely one at that.”
The Redguard shook his head. “No, no, it wouldn’t alter the accompaniment you have assembled, in fact this song is a duet, and requires a female partner anyways. The young mer should recognize this one well, if indeed she takes the company of merchants.”
“The songs of Hammerfell haven’t slipped by my ears,” Sheliah replied.
With that, the Redguard began singing in a low bass a song, where he represented a tired nomad, and Sheliah took the role of the Alik’r itself, responding in a nurturing voice to the nomad’s humble pleas for water, food, and rest. The rhythm and melody was easy to follow, and we three Imperials played along well. The counterpoint between the bass of the Redguard and the soprano of Sheliah made the song all the more poignant, and at the end, the song elicited the most applause yet. And for the next few hours, that’s how the day went for us. As the Redguard took his leave of us, other people would come to request songs from their homelands: some would dance along to it, while others might perform a duet with Sheliah, or sing themselves to give her voice a rest. By evening, we had played over three dozen or so lays, and the sack of coin grew to a mighty amount. At that time we were tired and very hungry. Reckoning it was time that we should set for home, my friends and I gave the sack of coin to the older man, let him keep his violin, and said our farewells. We didn’t go further than a few paces when the old man called for us again.

“Wait! Young ones! You must stay. There is nothing on Mundus I can do that can repay you for the kindness you have done for me this day, but at the very least I wish you to humor me in this. Now that I have all this coin, I want to take it to the Tiber Septim Hotel, out in the Talos Plaza. I’ve heard the kitchens there are some of the finest in the city, and I have wanted to try it since I was a boy. Will you have supper with me?”

We took up his offer enthusiastically. We bought for him clothes to change him out of his sackcloth into something more presentable, and escorted him to the Talos Plaza to the Hotel. The receptionist at the hotel’s atrium was more than baffled at our presence, what not with a well-dressed yet disheveled old man, and tried to turn us away until Appius informed the man that he was a Great War veteran, and that the proprietor would hear from his father, the respectable Herannus, if we were not served. At this, the receptionist gulped, and meekly showed us to a table. There we were served in numerous courses fresh fruit and salads, warm quail pot pie, venison stew, and at the end a marvelous apricot tart, all the while we had tankards continuously refreshed with the finest Skingrad wines available. All the night, the four of us ate, drank, and talked, laughing all through the evening until night fell. When it was finally time for us to depart the old man, we all gave him the tenderest of hugs we could give and exchanged our blessings. The old man, who had bought a room at the hotel, was escorted upstairs, all the while his violin in a case was clutched in his hands.

I was laughing to myself all the while. “Ah, that was quite the night. Never had I eaten a meal so fine, or had so much fun playing music. It normally is such a chore for me, unlike that night.”
The Exemplar chuckled herself. “Yes, and your performance was no mean feat either. Still, that was not quite the point of this vision. Your gift brought meaning once more to this man’s life. Thereafter he would play his violin in the Tiber Septim on commission for its guests, and was given room and board in return. Even members of the imperial family would come to listen to his performances. Eventually, his family would come there from Bravil, and upon hearing him play, would finally recognize who he was and be reunited with him after decades of assuming him dead. Though he had not much longer to live, those last years of his life were full of happiness in his art and his family. And this is the power that beauty has in this world. It brings people from across Tamriel together, and can let the lowly and unlucky rise from the gutter to find their fortune. It dispels the pain and misery of the world, and in its presence hearts are warmed and uplifted. And it is this power you must preserve. Protect the beauty of this world, both the works of nature and of man and mer, from those who would despoil it, and in such an act make the world a place of wonder. Do this, and Dibella would extend these blessings of beauty in your life as well.”




Soon the vision ended, and Tamriel faded back in, all the while I kept the smile I had on my lips. I noticed that the sun had gotten lower though, and that it was about midday. I stirred myself up to my feet, and getting my bearings on the location of the next shrine I leaped atop Julia and sped off again, eating and drinking on the ride as best I could before the sun went down. I only slowed down at a few intervals to allow Julia to catch her breath before bringing her back up to a faster gait. As I neared my destination, I could see mountains begin to tower off in the distance to my right, the same mountains, I remember, which separates the Pale from Eastmarch and Winterhold. Soon, I saw arches carved in the Dwemer style leading into a rock formation, which coincided by my count with the location of the shrine, so I followed. Sure enough, I found another stone platform, this time with an arch atop it and a stone effigy of face of an elderly matron carved into a circular knot motif below that arch, a Shrine of Mara.

I began chanting prayers to Mara, goddess of love and family. As with the other shrines, I began repeating Mara’s Command: “Live soberly and peacefully. Honor your parents, and preserve the peace and security of home and family.” My vision faded away to white once again, and I was left alone in silence. Soon a soothing, matronly voice spoke out.

“I am the Exemplar of Mara. Though you may not have known your parents, you have honored those whom you’ve called family. Your adoptive father, Herannus, and your adoptive brother, Appius. Your friends throughout your life remember you for your warmth and your loyalty. However, I find that you are yet unaware of the impact your love for these people has had on their lives. Behold, the Lesson of Mara.”

My vision slowly reassembled into a new one, that of a bridge: the one connecting the City Isle to mainland Cyrodiil, the walls of the Imperial City towering behind. Snaking out of the Talos Plaza Gate and out onto the Causeway was a column of Imperial Legionnaires in glittering armor and colorful livery: a cohort fresh from training on its way to its garrison in the provinces. My vision slowly flew by the marching columns of soldiers and over to a slight hillock off the main road. There I saw myself standing in full Legion armor, with a red horsehair plume streaming down my helmet and a red scarf with bronze trim wrapped around my neck: badges for a Decurion in command of a contubernium: a group of ten men who share a tent in camp and a mule for the march. Next to me was a Dunmer woman my age in a blue robe: Sheliah. The Exemplar spoke up.
“Ah, Sera Sheliah Llandu, only daughter to Math’Sera Athis Llandu. You knew him as a modest shoe-maker, but little did you know that he found his fortune in the Imperial City making slippers for the Imperial elite, making his daughter one of the most eligible heiresses among the mercantile community. You have shown his daughter much love and attention, and though he was grateful that you saved her life once, he was eagerly looking forward to being rid of you so that he could marry his daughter off to the highest bidder, and when you and your cohort marched off to High Rock, he found his opportunity.”
Sheliah, looked hurt, a tear rolled down from her scarlet eyes. She was holding my younger self tight.
“I knew this day was coming,” she said softly, but with pain in her voice, “I just thought I could push it away from my mind, for as long as I can, and now…”
My younger self started brushing her hair away from her brow. I gave her a slight smile and then looked towards the pouch that hung around my waist.
“I know, dearest, I know,” I reassured her, “I promise to write every day I can. But, Gods forbid, if this is it, then I want you to have this.” I took out a small steel dagger: engraved on one side was the name Irlav Cornelius, the prefect of my military boarding school, and on the other my own, Tertius Valerius. “At least you can remember the times we shared, even if we have other lives to live.”
Sheliah was left looking for words, but didn’t seem to find any. Eventually she just bent my face towards her and kissed me before taking the dagger from my hands and placing it in her leather belt. Soon, a legionnaire bearing a centurion’s crest and cape came riding up to me on horseback.
“Tertius!” he said, “that’s long enough of a farewell, I’d say. Come and rejoin your men! There’ll be plenty of time to write once we’re camped by Chorrol.”
“Yes sir, immediately!” I replied as I snapped a Legion salute towards him. I turned back to Sheliah, placed my hand on her cheek for the last time, and marched off to take my place in the column. Part of me felt like crying, though I found I had no eyes to cry.

The Exemplar spoke up again: “Such love was something Sera Llandu would not forget. Even when her father married her off to a wealthy banker by the name of Math’Sera Gilas Hlervu in Blacklight. Eager to accept the large dowry he was offering for Sheliah’s hand, her father sent her on his way without even meeting the man, enjoying the spoils of his wealth back in the Imperial City while he sent his daughter to an unhappy marriage, unbeknownst to you in High Rock.”

At this I was puzzled. I had written Sheliah before, even while I was in my garrison in High Rock, and she never mentioned that her marriage was anything but happy. The scene rematerialized into a large house in typical Morrowind style. There was a large atrium, with Morrowind flora potted in large Dwemer vases, as well as maroon tapestries drapped on the walls, and rugs placed on the floors. Next to the door was Sheliah dressed in a brilliant silver gown, flanked by a Khajiit and an Argonian, servants by their humble dress. Sheliah’s hands were folded, covered by the sleeves of her gown.
“Gilas Hlervu was far from being an honorable man,” the Exemplar spoke. “He used his wealth to finance illegal activities, especially trafficking drugs from Cyrodiil and Dunmer immigrants into Skyrim, but more importantly was what his funds were spent on: support for House Hlaalu and their underhanded conspiracy to reclaim supremacy in Dunmer politics. But above all, his crime was his drunken mistreatment of Sheliah.”

Soon enough, stumbling through the door were two Dunmers, visibly drunk. One was dressed in Bonemold armor, and the other was in green and gold formalwear: the first was probably a bodyguard, whereas the second was Gilas the Banker. The two were giggling and mumbling in drunken slurs until Gilas caught sight of Sheliah and straightened himself off.
“Wife!” he commanded in a broken voice, “I demand that wine and figs be brought for me and for my companion.”
Sheliah frowned slightly and replied in a calm voice: “I’m sorry, my lord. There are no figs or wine left to serve. In fact, we’re out of most of our foodstuffs.”
A streak of anger and annoyance shot across Gilas’ face. “And why is that?!” he boomed. “We had just went to market two days ago!” Sheliah hardened her expression and held her chin high. “I had donated them to the Temple as alms for the poor. The Priests came by asking for some and I obliged, letting them know that the Hlervus wish to honor the True Tribunal with its piety and generosity.”
Gilas’ anger turned into fury. He went up to Sheliah and slapped her across the face hard. It certainly looked like it hurt, but she took it with dignity. “HOW DARE YOU DO SUCH THINGS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!?” Gilas shouted hoarsely. “It is not your place to decide what to do with my property! In fact, it is not your place to do anything other than do what I say and bear me sons! Now, I command you to go down to the Temple and demand that our food be returned to us, and don’t return until you do!”
Even in the face of such rage, Sheliah looked unmoved. “I shall do no such thing, my husband. The Temple needs it more than we do.”
Gilas looked more surprised than angry at that response. “Nnn-no?” he asked in drunken confusion.
Sheliah replied quickly. “That is right, in fact, I do believe we should renegotiate the arrangements of our marriage. I will no longer be your….housemaid.”
Gilas stumbled a little, left blinking as he processed what she said. Suddenly, he returned to his state of rage. “Such insolence! I will not tolerate…”

Suddenly Sheliah’s hands came unfolded and she brandished the ceremonial dagger I had given her. “Oh, but you will!” she shouted as she thrust the dagger into his right thigh, catching him completely off guard. He fell over screaming in pain, unable to react. His bodyguard was surprised, and drunkenly attempted to draw his sword before the Argonian servant drew a blade of his own and plunged it straight into his neck, killing him, blood gurgling through his mouth as he fell to the floor.

Sheliah stood back up in triumphant silence. The two servants then brought rope and bound the wounded Gilas. “Sheliah had been neglected by her father for most of her life, and abused by her husband for the rest of it,” the Exemplar spoke, “but those brief few years with you provided her a glimpse of hope, allowed her to see that life could always be better. Your memento, your very memory gave her the strength and courage to endure the harm her husband inflicted on her by her husband, until she finally found the resolve to say that enough was enough and acted. She overpowered Gilas as you have seen here, and brought him before House Redoran to stand trial for treason in aiding their Hlaalu enemies. He was executed for his crimes, and Sheliah was awarded Gilas’ fortune and his place in the city council for her efforts, at last the master of her own destiny. All because of the love and friendship you had shown her. Know this, and treat those that love you with the same tenderness in turn, and Mara will continue to bestow her gifts upon you and those you touch.” At this, my vision faded back to the Shrine of Mara. It was dark out, and I could only view my surroundings in the moonlight. Fortunately the winds from earlier today died down, and the air was calm. I set about immediately finding a cove of rock to shelter myself and Julia for the night. After I found a suitable spot, I gathered some firewood and lit a blaze in our shelter. I cooked some rabbit that I had found earlier today and after eating my fill placed furs on Julia’s back to keep her warm in the night, and rolled out my bearskin bedroll to sleep in, and with the knowledge that I had received the day, I thought of the past to myself until I fell asleep.

[Alwyn]

Great update, your tales from the personal history of Tertius Valerius are enjoyable and compelling.

[Swaeft]

Dude, this AAR brings me back to years ago when Skyrim was all the rage (not sure if it still is?) and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. I'm enjoying this AAR, especially the plot you have weaved, it is a great trip down memory lane. It is always a sad affair when one's parents die in one's youth, so that adds to the mystique of this AAR, and is a great plot device. I love your descriptions of combat, it makes me feel as if I am there performing that action myself. I don't mind the wait time between your updates, keep em coming! +rep!

Edit: Damn Alwyn you are everywhere lol XD

[TheKnightofDay]

Chapter 13: Bitter Wisdom
2^nd of Hearthfire, 4E201

I awoke shivering violently. The winds were howling outside of the cove that I had slept in, and at the entrance a snowdrift as high as my waist had piled up. It was alarming, however I had a suspicion that something like this would happen. The tundras on the coast of Skyrim were well known to be a treacherous place, and that reputation is well known even in Cyrodiil and High Rock. With that in mind, I already had a bundle of firewood set aside to be used in the morning. Julia was standing near the mouth of the cove, lightly whimpering and snorting, but otherwise alright. I set aside some fodder for her, then set about to work lighting a fire. My shaking arms nearly caused me to break my flint as I struck it with my steel rod, but I managed to get my fire lit while keeping it in one piece.
“Thank the Gods,” I told myself, “that would have been my last flint.”
I took a good twenty minutes to warm my bones as Julia chomped away at her fodder. When I was ready, I set a pot of water to boil in the fire and took some bread and apples to eat as my breakfast. I set aside some of the water to cool for my drinking water, while the rest I used to prepare some tea with the last of my Akaviri tea leaves.
“Like they always say, Skyrim has a tendency to strip away the niceties of life down to their core,” I said to myself before sipping on my tea, “unfortunately, that has to extend to a little caffeine and a warm belly every now and then.”
Satisfying my hunger and my shaking limbs, I soon had Julia saddled up to go and struck out for the morning. She took her time, struggling through the deep snow banks that accumulated on the path that led to the Shrine of Mara, but soon we were on to more solid ground at the crest of a small ridge, and we followed its spine until we could see the makings of a path snaking towards the mountains. Remembering from my map, it was called Wayward Pass: it was cut into the rock face, there lay one shrine and some leagues south of it would be the location of yet another shrine on my pilgrimage. Shaking off the cold I felt from the winds whipping about us, Julia and I pressed on. As we trotted by, hares and foxes darted off in every direction. It’s funny, but when you think about it, even in hostile places like the wind-swept wastes of the northern coast, life still manages to thrive. Perhaps that is why, behind Talos, Kynareth is the most worshipped of the Divines in Skyrim, or Kyne as she is often called by the ancient Nords. In places like this, where the first Nordic settlers in Tamriel landed, they could see firsthand the sublime strength of nature, its tenacity and power, and rightly attributed it to something beyond the affairs of mere mortal creatures.
Often, with a little regret, I meditate on the fact that Talos, despite the official ban of his worship, is now more than ever emphasized in society, and that gods like Kynareth are often overlooked. Whether you believe in him or not, he is still ubiquitous in everyone’s mind by virtue of the debate. And the ironic thing is that he, being a war-god, is the inspiration for conflict in the Empire. In a more direct manner, you have his presence in the debate on the White-Gold Concordat, and how outrage over that has caused the Civil War here in Skyrim. In a slightly less overt manner, you also have him in this aspect being central to political intrigues back in Cyrodiil, with noble families in the Elder Council murmuring over the wisdom of the Concordat, and wondering, both aloud and in backrooms, if this is proof that Titus II, and perhaps his heirs, are unfit for the burden of statehood. And, in terms of theology, he is the root of the conflict that humanity is now facing with the Aldmeri Dominion. To the Aldmeri, he is an idol of oppression, the man who subjugated them to the rule of a human emperor deified. It would be equivalent to making an Alyeid king, a butcher of men, the Ninth Divine in Cyrodiil in a respect. And for the human races of Tamriel, he is an exemplar of the potential of man to triumph over elves, and it’s not hard to see that every emperor since has tried to live up to that example. It is in his very being to cause conflict, it seems, and though I revere him as much as any other divine, I wonder why nobody holds Kynareth, whose domain is over the land and life itself, is so neglected in our political and cultural consciousness.
When I finished my thoughts, to my surprise, I found myself face to face with the mouth of the pass. Astonished, I looked to my map, attempting to associate the terrain around me to confirm that I had indeed reached Wayward Pass. I found that it was no lie, and that I must have day dreamed myself out of a couple hours’ worth of travel. A potentially dangerous move, especially in such a harsh environment such as this, where I could have been waylaid by ice wraiths or bears. I should be more alert in the future, but at least I was safe with my wits about me now. Noticing that it was midday, and I was still a little hungry, I had a little bread to tide me over and dismounted off of Julia. I heard the howl of wolves on the wind, and knowing that the pass was narrow, I would stand a much better chance of fighting them off on foot than on horseback.
Slowly, with Julia’s reins in hand, the two of us advanced forward. Other than occasional gusts of wind, the pass was now mostly silent. The grey rocks stood in stark contrast to the glittering white snow, and sometimes from looking from one to the other my eyes smarted momentarily, readjusting to the rapid changes in brightness that this caused. As we walked further into the pass, the howl of wolves could be picked up on the wind again, this time sounding much closer. I drew the Sword of Arkay with my free hand and looked about the cliff face. They were much too steep for animals to traverse, so if there were wolves coming my way, they’d probably be to my front. Sure enough, about six or seven wolves soon came within my line of sight, all funneled in front of me due to the narrowness of the path. Julia bucked and whinnied at the sight of them, and I let go of the reins, grabbed my shield, and assumed a fighting stance in front of the wolves. Moments later I was already cleaning my bloody sword, and had Julia’s reins back in my hands again. Before I had found these relics, dispatching wolves with mortal weapons presented a small but noticeable challenge, but now the Sword of Arkay tore them into bloody ribbons with little effort.
“Not even a sweat broken,” I remarked to myself, “I might go soft soon at this rate.”
As I walked through, I noticed a niche cut into the rock that didn’t look entirely natural. As I approached it, it appeared to be a stone slab, with some skeletal remains placed on top of it. Next to it was placed an amulet, and pieces of armor and a shield was placed around the body. Behind the skeleton, there was a Shrine of Arkay erected on a metal pedestal. I sheathed my weapons and approached the shrine, ready to begin my meditations as before, but for some reason, my gut told me to stop. Something in the back of my head told me that I wasn’t ready for the revelations that I would receive from Arkay, which confused me greatly. I paused a moment, mulling over why I felt this urge, and soon enough I came to the conclusion that perhaps it wasn’t just me. Arkay is a god of beginnings as well as ends, the protector of the circle of life and death, and perhaps since I hadn’t begun my pilgrimage at Arkay’s shrine, I was meant to finish it there. So, murmuring a prayer to Arkay, I left and continued on my way.



I left the other end of the pass and started coming into a lower valley. Below me Lake Yorgrim, which was the head waters of the Yorgrim River, a branch of the White River. It was Skyrim’s main artery: it waters the vast majority of its agricultural lands, and gave the cities of Windhelm and Whiterun access to the Sea of Ghosts, and hence trade. It was the province’s equivalent of the Niben, a gate way to the outside world, which is why the ancient Nords had built their primary settlement there, and why it was the capital of Skyrim during its earlier history, before the rise of Solitude. And, with the rebellion of Ulfric Stormcloak, there are aspirations to restore that status. The city was not in sight, the mountains to the west of me formed a sort of basin that shielded approach from each direction: Windhelm could only be seen, and therefore accessed, from the southeast. Scanning the shores of Lake Yorgrim, I could see a thatched hall in the distance, and reckoning that an inn, decided to mark it on my map, in order to return to later, once I had reached the shrine I was looking for.
The sun was low, about near three or four in the evening, and I was beginning to approach a hill in the distance, just south of the lake. Passing through a grove of snowy woods, I noticed an extensive Nordic ruin that was built into a dry ravine to my right. An aura of dread and menace emanated from it, so I gave it a wide berth as I pressed on. I found a trail at the base of the hill, and rode Julia up to the summit. There, at the top, I found a stone pillar, but it laid bare. It should have been the location of the shrine, my intuition told me, but where is it? I approached the pillar and began inspecting it, when I noticed some foot prints in the permafrost. Following them for a couple dozen yards, I came up on a skeleton, picked clean days ago by scavengers, judging by the fact that there were still footprints to be read, and sure enough, the pyramidal sculpture to Julianos was there in the skeleton’s arms. Remains of an unlucky robber, it seems. I took the pyramid to the pillar, laid it in its rightful place, and began my prayers.



I knelt down, like I had before, and began chanting to myself the Command of Julianos. “Know the truth, observe the law, when in doubt, seek wisdom from the wise.” As I began repeating this mantra in my head, my vision returned back to the limbo that I have been used to reaching before. It was a long while, I thought, before I heard the voice of what sounded like an erudite man speaking slowly, but with perfect enunciation.
“I am the Exemplar of Julianos. Love of learning and appreciation for wisdom are virtues that you have held dear since you can remember. You have always sought the truth of the world through the works of writers immemorial, and have always been of an inquisitive nature whenever you had the opportunity to speak with someone of experience. However, you have yet to see where the respect of wisdom and knowledge fit into the wider world, where it plays a much more important role than you could ever dream. Behold, the Lesson of Julianos.”
My vision began to darken, and soon I could see pin-pricks of light begin to form. These lights gradually grew larger and brighter, and soon I found myself gazing at dozens of wax candles, flickering in the stale air of what seemed to be a lecture hall at some school or university. Soon, I recognized that this place was the classroom of Commodore Tamarik al-Rihad: my old nautical studies professor back at my old military boarding school.
“Oh dear”, I chuckled to myself, not expecting the Exemplar to overhear my exclamation.
“Oh dear is right,” replied the Exemplar, somewhat unexpectedly, “in all your years of education, you found Professor al-Rihad’s course to be among some of your most challenging endeavors. Learning all the intricacies of nautical navigation, signaling, ship-rigging, and centuries upon centuries of naval history you thought you’d never use, considering you knew your path lay with the Imperial Army and not the Navy nor among merchants, was something you found incredibly difficult. But putting in a great amount of effort you managed to keep your head above water, so to speak, and soon you were passing with flying colors, like the rest of your studies.”
My view shifted down towards the center of the lecture hall, were three dozen or so students in red tunics sat at lecterns, charcoal and parchment out, scribbling notes. A Redguard in Imperial Navy uniform stood in front of them, talking about the history of some important naval battle. I soon found my younger self, attentively listening at my lectern next to another student, a Khajiit female who was slumped over her desk, sound asleep.
At this I burst out laughing. “Ah, I can’t believe it, Ma’Anbi Riverpaw, my old classmate, I haven’t seen or heard from her in the longest time. Always fond of her cat-naps.”
As I was chuckling to myself, however, the Exemplar kept a sterner, more serious tone.
“Indeed it has been a long time. It is a tragic irony that while you were succeeding at a class that had no impact on your future, Ma’Anbi’s ambitions were thwarted by it. She came from a long line of sailors and merchants from Seneschal, and wanted nothing in life more that the command of her own vessel. But, despite this desire, she found the rigors of study not to her liking, and struggled to remain alert.”
As the Exemplar finished, I saw that my younger self noticed that his classmate was dozing, and so gave her a quick nudge with his elbow. Ma’Anbi awoke with a start, and glancing around, pieced together that she had unwittingly fallen asleep at her lectern again, and nodded in thanks to the young Tertius.
“As always, you felt pity in the face of despair, and wished to find a solution for Ma’Anbi, as is your nature.”
Sure enough, my younger self leaned over to his classmate and inquired: “Ma’Anbi, is everything alright?”
She took a deep sigh and whispered back: “No, Tertius, this One has been losing so much sleep, more than usual. Have been studying day and night for Maritime Examinations.”
She was referring to the exams that the Imperial government proctors in order to certify prospective ship captains and skippers for commercial and military vessels.
It dawned on the young Tertius, I could see, that she had no hope of passing this exam.
“Ma’Anbi had no other hopes, no other visions for her future, save for taking the reins of her own ship,” the Exemplar intoned, “or so you had thought, and perhaps there was some truth to it. But for the life of you, you could not bear to see someone fail in their life’s dream.”
“I should help you study, you shouldn’t tackle this on your own,” my younger self replied.
Ma’Anbi just shook her head: “No, it is this One’s responsibility, Tertius, you should worry about yourself.”
Unable to say anything else, the younger Tertius returned to his own notes.
My vision moved forward in time, an hour or so after al-Rihad’s lecture, where my younger self was walking the halls of the school. Going at an absent minded pace, walking from one lecture hall to another one, he then picked up a noise, coming from another hallway. It was a faint crying, he could hear. Walking over he noticed that source of the sobbing come from some curtains were drawn near a window. Opening it, he found it was Ma’Anbi with her head in her paws, sitting in an alcove next to a window.
Ma’Anbi was startled at this: “Tertius? What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I could ask the same question, is this about the exams?” my younger self asked.
The Khajiit sighed, “This One cannot lie any longer. Yes, it is. This One does not think she will pass.”
My younger self nodded in acknowledgment. His suspicions were confirmed, but he felt no pride in such a revelation. After a moment of silence between the two, the young Tertius had an idea. “Follow me,” he said, “I have someone we can see.”
My vision followed them as they continued on through the halls to the dormitory section of the school. At last, they came to a door where my younger self knocked and was greeted by a young Breton boy.
“Tertius, what can I do for you?” the Breton asked, curious as to what his business there was.
“Arnaud, my friend and I are here to talk about your spell.”
At this, the boy Arnaud became agitated. “No, no, no, I cannot do it!” he exclaimed. “It got me kicked out of admissions for the Arcane University, and the consequences could be even direr here.”
Young Tertius assumed a defensive tone.
“Arnaud, you’re not going to use it, I am. If I’m caught, I’ll take full responsibility.”
Arnaud crossed his arms. “Is she the other participant?” Young Tertius nodded.
Arnaud looked down, shaking his head. “What’s in it for me?” he asked, after pondering the matter over.
Tertius handed him what seemed to be a scroll wrapped in burlap. The Breton unwrapped the burlap covering and analyzed the contents. After a while, a slight grin shot across his face. He looked up and then beckoned the two to come inside his dormitory.
“Drastic times calls for drastic measures, so the cliché goes,” the Exemplar said, “you came to the conclusion that this matter required an extreme solution, despite what wisdom you had at the time, saying that this risk could have unintended consequences.”
After a couple of moments, the three students emerged from the dormitory, my younger self with a vial of an alchemical solution in hand.
“Drink that thirty minutes prior, and you will assume her likeness for the matter at hand.” Arnaud said, “It will last approximately four hours.”
My younger self shook his hand, and then I departed with Ma’Anbi. Days went by, and I found myself in front of a door to a lecture hall, with the same vial in my hands, the contents empty.
“I remember this, I merely thought this a favor for a friend,” I found myself saying.
“And indeed it was, at the time,” the Exemplar said. “What harm could have come of it, you asked yourself innocently enough.”
My younger self’s form soon began to ripple and assume the form of Ma’Anbi’s, and soon walked inside the lecture hall as the transformation was completed.
“But unfortunately, these actions had consequences much later in time,” the Exemplar continued. “Ma’Anbi succeeded in getting her ship, thanks to your efforts, a ferry between Anvil and the Isle of Stirk off the Gold Coast.”
Soon I found my vision transitioning to another view, this time of a humble single-mast cog sailing. A handful of sailors was tending the rigging, when he could see Ma’Anbi, in a simple shirt and sackcloth overalls, walked by them and assisted in their work. A pair of Imperials in finer clothing sat off to one side, sipping wine and playing draughts: passengers I surmised. The sailors were hard at work, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary from what I’ve seen from my handful of maritime voyages. That was, until I could see the sky. It was a deep grey: the clouds above were churning in menacing ways, and streaks of lightning cracked across the sky off in the distance. The claps of thunder filled me with dread, despite knowing that I was truly not a part of this vision.
“Captain!” An Imperial sailor cried out, “That storm is speeding up, there’s no way we can reach Stirk in time! We should set back for Anvil!”
Ma’Anbi looked back at the passengers, and saw them shaking their heads. She turned back to her crew: “We continue on, our clients paid good money to get there today.”
The crew grumbled softly, but set about back on their tasks. A couple hours passed by, and I could see Stirk looming out on the horizon, however, and the seas already began to get choppier. Large white caps started slapping against the hull of the cog.
“Captain! The sea is too rough, I won’t be able to see the rocks and reefs,” a sailor called down from the crow’s nest atop the mast.
Ma’Anbi looked distressed, but quashed her nerves and called back up: “No! We’ve come too far, we make port in Stirk or we are stuck in the storm!”
Not a moment had passed when all of a sudden a violent tremor shook across the ship. “Captain, I think we’re coming across a reef right now!”
Ma’Anbi rushed to the stern of the ship and looked overboard to see if she couldn’t find what was going on, but all she could see was grey water.
Suddenly, a great surge caught the ship on its port side and pushed it a great distance, when it caught against a great rock that revealed itself in the trough of the wave. The hull was ripped open and water began to pour in.
Great cries from the crew began to erupt. Then the rigging all around the ship began to snap. Ma’Anbi didn’t inspect them properly, I thought to myself.
The ship itself seemed to collapse on itself, and passengers and crew alike started to dive overboard in a desperate attempt to save themselves. Ma’Anbi stood there on the remains of the ship, paralyzed in disbelief as another surge suddenly brought what was left of the ship onto a rocky outcropping. What was left of the ship shattered utterly against the stone, and Ma’Anbi found herself knocked out cold on top of one of the small islands, planks and rope ebbing away with the tide from her unconscious body.
A pang of guilt shot threw me, and I could not bear to look anymore.
“Everyone but her perished that day, and despite surviving, Ma’Anbi was never the same,” the Exemplar said in a lecturing tone. “Wracked with guilt, she saw her crew every night in her dreams, until her psyche could not resist the onslaught of such guilt any longer. Eventually, she snapped, giving way to crushing dementia. She lives in an asylum now, swearing still that she could hear the ghosts of her crew, and is deathly afraid of any kind of storm, no matter how gentle.”
“Now you see that knowledge is not something that is to be taken lightly, it could mean the difference between life and death, and unfortunately because Ma’Anbi didn’t have this, and because neither you nor she had the wisdom to see that she should seek a new calling exacted a heavy price in lives. Now imagine if things like law, medicine, or magic was lost to all as the art of sailing was lost to Ma’Anbi. Civilization as we know it would cease to exist, and more lives would be lost thanks to ignorance. Knowledge is what saves them. Preserving and respecting its power is one of many of your duties. Live this lesson and in everything Julianos will grant you the wisdom and insight to shoulder your burdens and prosper.”
When I returned to Tamriel, the sun had gotten low. A warm sunset was in the sky, but remembering that there was another shrine to the west not far from this one, I mounted Julia and sped off in a gallop. Getting close to the location, I noticed that a series of stone dolmens were erected there. Dismounting Julia, I slowly began to approach the site. As I did, the air became unnaturally chillier, as if a wind of ice penetrated my armor. Darting my gaze around, I noticed that a strong drift of wind picked up, flinging particles of ice into the air. However, as soon as these were picked up, they coalesced into a vaguely serpentine form, and began snaking to and fro, and straight at me.
“Oblivion take me, how did I not expect ice wraiths!” I said to myself, cursing my own carelessness.
The wraith danced around me as I raised my shield. It whipped its tail in an attempt to strike me, the ice crystals grating against the metal boss of my shield. Sword of Arkay in hand, I swung at the creature, but missed. Completely open to attack, the wraith struck at me with great speed, and cut a gash across my arm. I reeled back in pain, and behind the safety of my shield took a glance at my wound. It wasn’t insignificant, and was bleeding, but I could still fight through with it. It danced towards me again, and, anticipating its movements, I struck right where I estimated it would slither to. I managed to strike through the entity, and my sword blazed with holy fire as I came through with it. The creature shuddered with what I can only assume was pain. It started to dance a little slower, at which point I cast away my shield and readied a fire spell in my free hand. As it wound its way towards me for another attack, I let loose a burst of flame from my hands, catching it off guard. It let out a low hiss as the ice particles turned to steam, and in a couple of seconds all that was left of the wraith was a cloud of vapor slowly settling on the ground. My arm began throbbing with pain as the winds calmed, and looking over to my wound, I now saw that the wound was more serious than I thought it was, and it was bleeding profusely. Swearing, I sheathed my sword and picked up a handful of snow to clean the wound. It wiped away some of the blood, but it was still seeping through my wound. Going over to my saddle bag, I found a bottle of brandy that I kept as an antiseptic for such an occasion, and doused my wound. It felt worse than the actual blow, but it put aside any thought in my mind that it would become infected. I bandaged it up with some cloth that I found, and took a potion of healing for good measure. In about an hour, with an opportunity to eat some food too, my arm felt healthy again. I began looking around again, and found another shrine, this time beneath an enormous statue of a warrior in Nordic armor slaying a serpent. It was a Shrine to Talos.
My attention now focused on my prayers to Talos, god of war, law, and order. I began repeating the Command of Talos: “Be strong for war. Be bold against enemies and evil, and defend the people of Tamriel.” My vision faded to white once more, and I was suspended in the now familiar silence of my meditation. Soon, a commanding masculine voice broke the silence.
“I am the Exemplar of Talos. You and your family have been loyal citizens of our great Empire, and have defended her and her people stalwartly through the generations. Even now, you seek to raise yourself to the holy cause of justice, peace, and piety. But, even for the courage in your heart, I still sense hesitation and uncertainty. You must learn what such lapses in conviction cost. Behold, the Lesson of Talos.”
My view transitioned to that of a grassy, hilly plain, the sounds of battle blaring loudly. I recognized the site immediately: it was one of the engagements I fought in during my tour in High Rock with the Legion. A large Forsworn raiding party snuck over the Druadach Mountains into High Rock to raid Evermore and the surrounding countryside. Our cohort was called in to reinforce the forces of the King of Evermore and managed to repel the warband. While the Evermorian forces stayed back in the city, our forces pursued the Reachmen through the foothills of the mountains until we cornered them near a set of cliffs. There, cut off from escape, the Reachmen conducted a desperate charge to try and break through our lines. My gaze swung up into the sky into a bird’s eye view of the battlefield. There, I could see two opposing battle lines, on one side was our men, armed and armored to the teeth, the red Imperial banners flapping in the wind, shields overlapped, and the men stoically silent. On the other was the ragged remains of the Forsworn warband, desperate but more numerous than the Imperial forces. They began banging their shields and screeching in an attempt to intimidate their foes.
“I see you recognize this well,” the Exemplar said, “one of the most pivotal moments in your military career. You and your men cornered this unlucky band of cutthroats, and though you were the better warriors and prevailed, none can deny that the Reachmen fought bravely this day. It is also the moment of your most costly mistake.”
Suddenly the Forsworn lines broke ranks and began charging towards the Imperials in a frenzied surge. Men and women in wicked red face paint were bellowing as they charged, weapons held high above their heads. The legionnaires however were silent by comparison, and utterly unmoved by this display of ferocity. Officers were moving down the lines, ordering their men to hold ranks and prepare to launch a javelin volley at the approaching Reachmen. My view then focused on myself, clad in my Imperial armor, surrounded by the men from my contubernium.
“Hold men!” I was shouting, “Wait until they’re fifty paces away!” The legionnaires readied their javelins in cold silence.
“Hold!”
“Hold!”
At last I could see that the swarm of Reachmen had finally came in range when all the officers in the Imperial lines simultaneously gave the order to launch their javelins at the enemy. The shafts arced towards the Reachmen with a low, menacing whistle, and they fell on them with no mercy. The points struck into the Reachmen with sickening thuds, and screams of pain erupted all across their lines. Though only a few javelins found their mark, it was enough to cause the charge to stutter and lose momentum, as the Reachmen were left wondering what hit them. Suddenly, in unison, the legionnaires drew their swords and readied the charge. Up and down the Imperial lines, the battle cry “For the Emperor!” broke out and the legionnaires charged forward into the fray.
Yelling as I rushed to the enemy, I held my shield high as I crashed into a Reachman, knocking him off his feet, then finished him with a thrust through the chest as he lay sprawled out on the ground. A loud metallic bang echoed through the hills as the Imperials met the Forsworn, and a deadly melee ensued. I began looking around and brought my men tighter into formation with the rest of our comrades.
“Hold the line, men! Let the bastards come to you!” I shouted, raising my sword high in the air to attract my men’s attention. We closed ranks as we came shoulder to shoulder, pushing and stabbing at whichever unlucky Reachman came face to face with us. To my left was another decurion, Flavius, a close friend of mine in my school days.
“And to think, we’d be doing road repair duty today!” Flavius shouted in a jovial mood.
“Well, thank the Nine,” I replied, “you’re a paver anyways! More use out of you here than there!”
Flavius didn’t have time to laugh as a Forsworn tried burying his two axes into his skull, but he managed to meet them with his shield, then thrust his sword into the man’s gut. I was beset too by another Forsworn warrior, as I parried his blow with my own sword, then knocked him back with a bash of my shield to his face, with my comrade to my right; one of my men, an Orc named Burgash, decapitating him with a swipe of his sword.
“Indeed, you and your men were brave,” the Exemplar said, “the Empire could not have had finer soldiers. It was no surprise that the day was won.”
No sooner did the Exemplar finish this when thundering towards the flanks of the Forsworn lines came a contingent of Imperial cavalry, lances couched. They crashed into the Reachmen with a mighty roar, and the cries of battle grew louder. My men and I felt packed in, as some of the Reachmen desperately tried to push against our shields at the impact of this charge. The fighting grew fiercer as a shoving contest began between the Imperial infantry and the Forsworn warriors, as their comrades were being hacked to pieces behind them by our cavalry. Soon, the pressure let up as the Reachmen panicked and started to rout, their furious battle cries turning into desperate pleas for escape. Cheers began to break out among the surviving Legionnaires, but soon that was interrupted by commands from the officers to begin pursuing the broken enemies
“Cut ‘em down, lads, keep up the pressure!” a centurion bellowed to his men
Our centurion, Sabellus, was issuing the same commands when a man in a crimson cape with gold trim and a golden dragon brooch, the badges of a tribune, came galloping up to him.
“Centurion Sabellus, have your century push towards the enemy’s rightward outpost on the edge of their main camp and hold it! Centurion Cyrus will handle their leftmost outpost, whereas the rest of the cohort and I will pursue their main force.”
My centurion snapped the Legion salute to him. “Consider it done, my lord.” The commander then galloped off.
Centurion Sabellus then turned to us. “Decurions, on me!”
The ten decurions of his century, including me, huddled around him.
“We’re taking and holding the outpost on the enemy’s right flank. Tertius, I want you to spearhead the main assault; Sigurd, Jar-Meen, and Gaius will follow up, and spread out to capture any valuables and prisoners in the outpost. Marcellus and Vivienne will probe to the right of the outpost and guard against any incursions from the flank. Flavius, take your men up on the bluffs overlooking the outpost and make sure their skirmishers don’t come into contact. I’ll stay with the rest of the century in the reserves to develop the situation as I see fit. Move it, men! For the Empire!” And with that Sabellus ran off with the decurions in the reserves.
“An innocuous start to an otherwise damning endeavor,” the Exemplar said, “but at this point, you were merely following orders like any proper soldier would, and who could blame you. There was nothing to suggest that anything would go wrong quite the way it did.”
Suddenly, time appeared to speed up as my view hovered over myself on the march towards the objective Centurion Sabellus gave me. As my men and I crossed the threshold of the enemy’s outpost, time returned to its normal flow. The camp was seemingly undermanned, and my contubernium had no trouble dispatching the surprised handfuls of Forsworn warriors whenever we found them. We kept pushing towards the bluffs to the rear of the outpost, hoping to encircle any Forsworn survivors and force them to capitulate. So far, the plan was going smoothly as we pushed our way through the tents and yurts of the outpost. When we at last reached the bluff, however, a dozen or so Forsworn archers were awaiting us. They let loose a volley as we came within sight of them, and they managed to wound one of my men. “Men, form a testeudo over Edmond!” At that my men rushed over to the body of the wounded legionnaire, and formed a hollow square three men by three, with him in the middle. The front row put their shields in front of themselves, while the rows behind us raised their shields over our heads. Arrows began thudding into our shields with menacing accuracy. One of my men groaned as an arrow nicked him in the leg. We held the formation for what seemed to be hours, when indeed it was only moments, when our shield arms began to tire, and it seemed impossible to hold the formation any longer, when suddenly Imperial war cries broke out on the bluffs. Flavius’ men were engaging the enemy and managed to drive off the archers, leaving the rest of the outpost secure. Both our contuberniums began to cheer in triumph. My men began to inspect the tents looking for loot and survivors, awaiting the other contingents of the century to mop up behind us when the screams and din of battle once again returned to the bluffs.
I turned to look at the spectacle, and all I could see were four pale Reachmen with staghead helmets and what appeared to be thorns ripping through the skin where the heart was supposed to be. “By the Divines, Briarhearts!” I cursed aloud. It was no empty lament: they were the finest warriors the Forsworn had to offer, and they fought with superhuman ferocity. Flavius’ men didn’t stand a chance. One by one, the legionnaires on the bluff began to fall to the wicked axes and spears of their foes, each one chilling and mortifying us to the core.
“Sir, there must be something we can do?!” one of my men asked. My younger self froze, unable to speak or react in any way.
Eventually I managed to say: “We hold here! Sabellus will come to their aid, it might be a ploy to separate us from our comrades in the outpost. Only thing we can do now is pray and hope.”
Burgash, the honorable orc that he was, was agitated by this. “Sir, we can save them! They’ll die if we stay here, Sabellus won’t reach them in time!”
Without thought it seemed, my younger self yelled back: “I said hold the line! I won’t have insubordination in the midst of battle! If we go up there, we die, and perhaps those beasts will overrun our men behind us too!”
Flashes of anger and hurt pride flickered in Burgash’s eyes, but he only nodded in gruff acknowledgement. I could see that my younger self felt much the same way.
“I remember this now…” I said, intending for the Exemplar to hear, “I remember the way I felt. That perhaps it would be better if Burgash got his way, death before dishonor.”
“Perhaps you are right,” the Exemplar replied, “in any case, the battle was far from lost, and that means you should have kept fighting. Look back.”
I did so, and I could see Flavius and three other legionnaires were pressed up against another bluff that rose above the one separating my men from him. The four Briarhearts circled around the Imperial troops and began to take out vials and coat some daggers with their contents. The Imperials once again began to fight back, but one by one, the Briarhearts managed to wound the legionnaires and render them unconscious through whatever foul thing was on their blades. My heart sank when Flavius, the last of them standing, met this fate too. My younger self stood there teeth gritted, looking like he wanted to scream. After the legionaries were subdued, the Briarhearts picked them up, hauled them over their shoulders, and trotted off. Only moments later did we see Centurion Sabellus and dozens of his men reach where Flavius’ men were butchered, but they were too late to do anything. I could see a single tear roll down my cheek, as I turned away and ordered my men to stand down as other Imperial soldiers arrived to relieve us.
“It hurt you to see the fate of your friend, that is plain to see,” the Exemplar spoke in a soothing tone, but one that turned judgmental as it continued, “but that is not the lesson Talos wishes you to learn. As a result of your hesitation, your friend and his comrades were taken back to the Reach with the few Forsworn survivors that were left. Though the plunder of Evermore eluded them, they did not return empty handed: they had human sacrifices, and warriors at that, to offer to the Hagravens and their Daedric Masters. With the souls of those legionnaires, their warband gained enough power from their dark patrons to sack several more villages throughout the Druadach, adding hundreds more to their body count. Your moment of cowardice and indecisiveness cost the people of Tamriel this much, so you must learn not to be shaken in the face of overwhelming odds. There was still a chance you could have rescued Flavius, and in turn spared those villages their fates. Only through valor, through sacrificing the concern for your own life and those of whomever fight alongside you, can the evils of this world be defeated. Know this, and in a hundred battles Talos will not allow you to lose one.”
With these bittersweet words rattling in my head, my vision once again returned to my meditative form kneeling before the Shrine of Talos. It was now dusk, and I could only see my surroundings through the moonlight. Looking around, I managed to see some torches in the distance. It was probably the inn I saw earlier. Mounting Julia again, I made my way there. I entered the inn, with the barkeep there looking dumbfound at my wound and my Imperial uniform. I remembered that there could be Stormcloak supporters here, and they would immediately accuse me of being a Legion scout. Reflexively, I reached to my breast and grabbed my Amulet of Talos, showing it to the man.
“I’m travelling in peace, I’m no raider.”
The man breathed a sigh of relief. “I reckon you might want some mead and a room?”
I shook my head enthusiastically. I bought a couple flasks of mead and brought it into the room that I rented. Downing them in fast succession to dull the pain in my arm, I set aside my things and fell asleep.

[Swaeft]

This is one hell of a long chapter, and I'm loving the images that you're uploading, but please please please fix the spaces between the lines...I cannot sit through that and read it again...please no...

[Alwyn]

Good update, I particularly liked the explanation of how Talos worship would look to the Aldmeri, and the desire of Tertius to help Ma’Anbi when she was struggling (even though his method of helping doesn't sound wise.)

Like Swaeft, I feel that lines spaces between paragraphs would help. I wonder if you're having difficulties with the formatting when copying from a word processor to a post on TWC? If so, one thing which can help is to switch to source mode before posting. Simple click 'Post Quick Reply' to open a new post, then select the button with two of letter As divided by a diagonal line, in the toolbar which includes B for Bold, I for Italic and so on. When that button has lit up, copy and paste the chapter from your word processor to the post on TWC. In my experience, at least, this can solve some formatting problems.

[TheKnightofDay]

Chapter 14: Universal Mercy
3^rd of Hearthfire, 4E201
*Author's Note: noticing some of the complaints regarding the spacing format of the last chapter, I decided to really exaggerate spacing in my word processing software, so that when I put my text in the quick reply box, it won't look like a jumble of letters in one long paragraph like it has been doing. Hopefully this makes things easier on the eyes for you readers out there *


I woke up the next morning refreshed. The air in the room was chill, but not altogether cold. The coolness was a balm for me, and was revitalizing. Gathering up my things, I walked back out into the common room of the inn. A Breton in a leather cap was slumped over on the table, snoring loudly. I walked up to the innkeeper, and I ordered some eggs and salt pork to eat: I was hungrier than usual. The barkeep hummed softly as he whipped up the dish and served it to me. As I ate from my plate, my memory kept going back to the visions I experienced last night, especially the one I had at the Shrine of Talos…I kept thinking about Flavius. A tidal wave of guilt struck my emotions off balance, and my earlier bushy tailed demeanor sunk to a melancholy low. I kept thinking back to that battle, when the Briarhearts sprung their trap, about what I could have done differently, how I could have saved my friend’s life, and the lives of his men. After a half hour of going through this in my head, I realized that none of this self-condemnation was going to bring those soldiers back. Like it or not, the past was in the past, and I needed to move on. The future was what was important. Like the Exemplar of Talos told me, I must not hesitate when in the face of evil. As I finished my breakfast and left the inn, I walked out into the snow and went to my knees. There, I swore an oath to Talos and the Nine, that whatever foe was in my power to stop, I would never again sit idle for even a moment. I would vanquish said evil, or die in the process, for it was better to die a just man than to live in disgrace.


My determination peaked through these prayers and oaths, I found my next destination, down in the Rift, and mounted Julia. We moved east on the road to Windhelm, following the Yorgrim River as it babbled through snow-capped stones. The morning sun glinted beautifully off the snow, and bird songs trumpeted from the trees here and there. Within an hour or two, I came to a lumber mill on the river, and by it a stone bridge. Crossing it and looking to the northeast, I can see in the distance the black walls of Windhelm, the first time I’ve ever seen it with my own eyes. The first human city on Tamriel, and its aged hue testifies to such a high pedigree. Breaking away from my awe, however, I pulled my wool riding cloak over my Imperial armor, so that onlookers won’t catch a glimpse of it, and pressed on. I crossed another bridge over the White River, and began to strike for the south. Soon the terrain began to transition from the snowy forests of Eastmarch to a milder clime. Stalks of grass began to shoot out of the snow, but I could also smell a lingering whiff of rotten eggs. After another hour of riding, the snow all but vanished, and I came saw what the source of the smell was.


Out in the distance was a plain dominated by rocky crags, and in irregular pools were gathered black pools of sulfuric tar, as far as the eye could see. It was an otherworldly sight, and I would have liked to have taken it in longer, had the stench not driven me mad. I could not focus on anything else, it was so strong. Dismounting Julia, I gathered a bundle of small wildflowers, and chopping them up and crushing them with my knife, I put the pieces into a small linen handkerchief and rolled it all into a bag. I took a long whiff of it, and found that it was sweet smelling enough to stop the smell of the sulfur. I mounted Julia again, and with one hand on the reins and another holding the handkerchief, I continued on the road. As I went by these crag-strewn wastes, I saw great bones, pale white, jut out of the tar pools. They were large, so large I couldn’t believe it: they were mammoth bones. Though these were no longer living creatures, it still shocked me to see how truly massive their remains were. It baffled me to think that a creature that large could keep itself together; I would have thought something like that would collapse under its own weight, had I not heard in my school days that something like that was indeed possible. I chuckled to myself for a moment, and pressed on.







Near the end of the swamp, I found that the map led me to one such rocky outcropping. There, I found a stone platform that appeared as if it was carved by human hands. Climbing to this platform, I found that there was a stone altar there, flanked by stone dolmens. There, I found a carving dedicated to Akatosh, and a scattering of animal remains, perhaps intended as offerings from hunters. Some of them were fresh.


Kneeling before the great dragon statue of Akatosh, King of the Gods. I began chanting the Command of Akatosh: “Serve and obey your Emperor. Study the Covenants. Worship the Nine, do your duty, and heed the commands of the saints and priests.” This time however, instead of my vision fading into white, it instead grew pitch black. The darkness astonished me, and I started to grow a little concerned, even afraid of what I might see next. Soon, however, a voice deeper than all of the others spoke out. It sounded ancient, far more ancient than anything my senses have ever perceived. It boomed as it spoke, echoing as if I were in a great chamber. “I am the Exemplar of Akatosh. The Great Father has seen that your heart knows only love for the Nine and their covenants, and that in treating with the people of Tamriel, you follow their every example. You defend those that cannot defend themselves. But, there are foes that exist beyond the mortal realms, and they threaten much more than cities and nations, but rather Mundus and the very laws of nature itself. You must be wary of these forces, and know the threat that they pose to all life. Behold, the Lesson of Akatosh.”


As this voice faded away, I noticed that in the darkness small points of light began to appear. They started growing larger and brighter, and soon I realized that they were the stars of Aetherius, shining in a brilliance that nearly blinded me. In the corner of my eye, however, I noticed a dark patch in the starlight. It was small at first, but it slowly grew in size. It started to gain a menacing size when I could see a sort of red mist ooze through the dark wound. Around this red fog, I could see sets of eyes start to twinkle out of the blackness. Their gaze was icy cold, and full of malice and dark desires. My vision started to pan down, and soon I could see twelve spheres of stone and water arranged in a line.

“This cannot be,” I thought aloud, “am I seeing?”

“Yes,” the Exemplar responded preemptively, “what you are witnessing is Mundus before the great strife between the et’Ada, when the Void and Creation co-existed in peace. Though this detente had existed for eons, before Time itself was forged by my master, it was not to be, for like one tide that meets another that flows as its opposite, their very natures could not allow such peace to last.”


Suddenly, I noticed a shadowy blade of red mist go through these worlds and shattered all twelve into hundreds of fragments. I could hear thousands of separate noises erupt across the Void, some were wails of pain, others were sneering bouts of laughter, and others still were cries of rage. Fire and blood seemed to seep out from the broken fragments of these worlds, and all around all I could feel was anguish and fear, confusion and hatred. Suddenly however, like time was reversing, the worlds reassembled themselves, and the noises ceased. Then the stars again faded away, and I could see nothing. For a moment, my vision was black again, and everything was still. Then, in an overwhelmingly swift pace, the previous events played out again, and this time, my vision was brought closer to the fragments of Creation.


I could see in the void wisps of white starlight and red miasma begin to flow against one another, like water in a choppy sea, and sounds like battle echoed across the darkness. Then I could see the surface of the shards of earth and rock, and I could see forms that were neither man nor mer, yet at the same time appeared as if they were both. In confused rage, they were fighting one another as well in the midst of the fires that were engulfing, and I could see several of those figures fall at the hands of the others. Then, moments later, I could see time reverse itself again, and those same figures that had fallen instead bested their opponents. Various patterns of these defeats and victories played themselves over and over again, and I began to tire of witnessing such madness.


“I can feel you stirring at this sight,” the Exemplar spoke, “and for any who have not seen the time before Time, it can be expected. What you see is what our universe, Aurbis, was like in the Dawn Era. Here time flows in a confused jumble: sometimes forward, sometimes in reverse, and can either repeat itself or take an entirely new course, before such a course is reversed again and brought to the crossroads at which it started. The only constant in this chaos is pain and war. Though death is not an end to things, it is not the beginning of an eternity of serenity and peace, but a condemnation: a curse of dying only to be resurrected to return to the grave in a new way, the pain of which replays itself ceaselessly. This torment affected the ancestors of the gods as well as mortals equally, but there were some among these primordial spirits who reveled in this eternal cycle of destruction and wrath.”

“That seems to be true,” I responded meekly, “there are voices that are laughing in the midst of all this, like this chaos was sport for them.”

“Indeed it is. The spirits of the world before time, the et’Ada, have come of three natures, as the myths of your childhood have likely told you. There are whose parentage is of the great demiurge, Anu, those who embody order and stasis: the Magna Ge, or the followers of what the mer of Tamriel call Magnus. They found creation too abhorrent, and left Mundus, leaving for the plains of Aetherius. Where they left is what you now see as the stars of the night sky. Then there are those who are descended of the great destroyer, Padomay, those who, in their myriad desires, all thirst for the chaos of unending change. They are who you know call the Daedric Princes, the Lords of Oblivion, the darkness between Mundus and Aetherius. Then, there were those of both lineages, those who wanted a world where change and stability could exist in peace, and where these forces could be tamed so that life could thrive. These are the Aedra, the people of which the Gods themselves belong to.”



As the Exemplar finished his thoughts, I could see that the fragments of the twelve shattered worlds now started to slowly draw together at a single point. There, wisps of what appeared to be grey smoke congregated. They exuded an aura that I could not see visibly, save for the effects that it had in the space that it fell under. Where was once the choppy tides of fire and conflict, there started to form pockets of silent stillness, where the fury of the primordial chaos was kept at bay.

“Are these the Aedra?” I asked.

“Aye. Then, they were many, and Aka was their chief. They saw that their only hope was to gather the pieces of Creation together into one world, and to make themselves through sacrifice the stone and mortar of a new order in the cosmos, the bones if you will of a new organism that give it structure. They were assisted in their endeavors by the Padomaic Lorkhan, who envisioned this new world, and the Anuaic Magnus, who was its architect. Lorkhan told the Aedra that to create this world, they must use their very essences as the material in which its stabilizing forces could be built from.”


When the Exemplar finished, I noticed that the fragments of creation itself began to coalesce into one world. The figures that I saw standing on these shards, no longer fighting, simply witnessed these things with great curiosity. One shard had thousands of these beings, gathered together in one large continent, while other smaller shards had smaller bands. All the while, the wisps of grey smoke floated all around this new world, some of them melding with the stone and earth and others disappeared in the newly formed skies and oceans.


“However, Lorkhan had neglected to tell the Aedra that such an act would erase many of them from creation. Before many knew the full extent of the price they had paid, nearly all of the Aedra had died to become the foundations of Nirn, and Magnus in disgust retreated from Mundus into Aetherius, the gap through which he entered this realm becoming the sun. Though the Aedra were now few, their creation was made, and in this they found some small consolation. In revenge for the loss of his people, Aka tore out the heart of Lorkhan, and condemned him to walk Nirn as a shade all the days of his life. However, Lorkhan had one more card in his hand to play before this sentence could be passed.”


Soon, I could see that the world, Nirn, was seemingly complete, and everything was still again, and suddenly, from a tall spire that I could see off in the distance, a great shockwave rocked through the land.

“Lorkhan the Deceiver knew the true price of the Convention that started Time and the world as you know it: the Aedra would be so weakened from their task that they could not interfere in the affairs of Nirn, unless they were willing to pay a great price to do so. In a cruel twist, he did not apply the same prohibition to his cousins, the Daedric Lords. They could walk among mortals and apply their devices freely, and in this way Creation could potentially be undone. And finally, he stirred in the hearts of mortals the embers of many wars to come. The figures you have seen were the Ehlnofey, the ancestors of the men and mer of the modern day. There were the Old Ehlnofey, who had made a kingdom which you have seen on one of the larger fragments of their former world, and then there were the scattered bands of the Wandering Ehlnofey. When the Old had barred entry to their lands to the Wanderers, Lorkhan stirred them to war, and for all of time after, their descendants, the races of Elves and Humans respectively, would have eternal enmity between them sown into their souls. Lorkhan had intended to use this as a distraction, for the mortals of Nirn would be too occupied in fighting themselves than in reacting to the incursions of the Daedra into their world. Though Lorkhan, it is true, was fond of Men, his hatred for the Aedra was even greater, and so allowed this chink in the fabric of the world to exist, so that the Daedra, if they so choose, can dismantle Mundus and bring Creation back into the eternal night of timeless chaos, with the Gods unable to react, and mortals too obsessed with their own affairs to notice.”


Soon, my gaze focused on a great island in the middle of the lake, whose shape I could recognize as the City Isle in Lake Rumare, but no city of men or mer yet stood. Then, as if history played through my eyes at an accelerated pace, I could see cities on the isle and in the lands beyond rise and fall. I could see fields ripen and wither, armies fight and then disperse, and alternating periods of decay and growth play out in a colorful show. It was a truly awesome sight to behold, as before me I witnessed the history of my people, the Imperials, flash before my eyes: the Alessian Rebellion, the Reman Dynasty, the Interregnum, and the rise of the Septims. And I could see the same for the other peoples of Tamriel: the years of the Great Council of Morrowind, before the fall of the Tribunal, the coming of Ysgrammor to Skyrim, the building of the Crystal Tower in the Summerset Isles. In witnessing all of this, I felt a great love not only for my native land and people, but for all Tamriel in its beauty build in my heart. The vast golden deserts of Hammerfell and the verdant rainforests of Black Marsh all seemed equally beautiful to my eyes, and a desire to revel in their mysteries stirred in me.


“Only now can I comprehend how much I love this world and her people,” I found myself saying. “If I were of the Aedra, I could see myself having no qualms in giving my life to give birth to the wonders of Tamriel. Since I am but a man, I will have to settle with a life of service, not to only one nation but to all peoples.”


The Exemplar gave a satisfied chuckle. “I see that the Lesson of Akatosh perhaps has been planted in your heart since the day it was born, all it needed was a catalyst to bring it to the surface. And the Divines are all but pleased to grant you your wish, for it is now a responsibility placed on you, like it once was placed on your forefather. If you live to protect Nirn and the foundations of Mundus first beyond all other concerns, Akatosh will bless you with his protection and his love all the days of your life, and the people of Tamriel that yet live true to the familial spirit of Creation will treat you as a long-lost brother.”

With this, the light of my vision returned to the slice of Tamriel that I had previously found myself, and I could feel that my heart was glowing with the light of divine purpose. It was late in the day, and if I wanted to reach the next shrine, I had to hurry.


By the evening, I had reached the borders of the Rift, with the sulfur pools behind me in the distance. The terrain began to climb up into a plateau of sorts, and the foliage became greener. At the summit of the plateau, next to the road, stood a guard tower. Once I reached the summit, I came up to a fork in the road right before a village. In the distance I could see the road continue onward until it was straddled by a ruined fort in the distance. Knowing that it was a perfect bandit stronghold, I took the other road, a woodland trail snaking off to the left, instead. After another hour or so of riding, I came up to a point where the road splits through a rocky crag, and there stood a wooden wall and a gate: the city of Riften. It was humble and unassuming, but I knew it had a reputation for being dangerous, so going near to the gate, I skirted around the wall and followed the road to the south of the city going towards the Morrowind border. The terrain began to be dominated by high, rocky ridges and sharp valleys. Keeping one such peak to my right, I followed the road east until I crossed a stone bridge crossing a small pond. Soon, I came into the mouth of a valley that had a trail leading up a draw and onto a small ridge, where there stood a stone tower: my destination. In an hour, I climbed to the summit and reached the tower. It was an outpost of the Vigil of Stendarr I found out, and after a small conversation with the vigilants, they allowed me to access the tower’s shrine, and let me pray in peace.







As I knelt before the Shrine, I began to recite the Commandment of Stendarr: “Be kind and generous to the people of Tamriel. Protect the weak, heal the sick, and give to the needy.” After a few moments, the familiar white vision began to appear, and the noises around me faded into silence once again.
The voice of an old man, affectionate in tone, spoke out:
“I am the Exemplar of Stendarr. You are indeed a man of mercy and compassion: you treat the people of Tamriel like they are of your own kin, and whenever possible, you stay your hand from the act of bloodshed, only doing so to protect those who cannot protect themselves. However, while you do this, you know not the reason why, you are simply compelled by your nature. But by knowing the purpose of mercy in the world, you can become its example to a world that is in dire need of empathy. Behold the Lesson of Stendarr.”


After the words of the Exemplar faded away, I found myself on a cobblestone road, snaking its way through meadows and fields of wheat, with half-timbered farmhouses dotting the landscape in the distance. I recognized that it was the road leading from Wayrest in the southeast of High Rock, to my garrison in province, one path that I had travelled many times during my tour of duty there. Soon I could hear voices behind me, slowly growing louder until I could distinguish the words that were being spoken. Soon, a trio of carts being hauled by mules was on the road, flanked by a dozen or so men in Legion armor and another dozen in a motley assortment of leather, chainmail, and iron armor: mercenaries.

“Nuthin’ like escorting yet another provisions caravan, eh Tertius?” a gruff voice said, “Seems like we’re always getting this detail.”

“Aw, that’s enough, Harald.” I could hear my younger self say: “Someone has to do the job, and better this than digging irrigation ditches in some mountain village.”

“I suppose you’re right, but I think my legs have done more walkin’ than my arms have done workin’. Don’t want them goin’ too soft: the lasses back home fancy themselves a man who can split logs just by lookin’ at ‘em, not some sop who can just walk a hundred miles.”

My younger self chuckled. “Being a Legionnaire isn’t enough for a Nord-ess?”

Harald snorted, “Nah, not since that Jarl Ulfric fellow’s been rustling everyone’s feathers back in Skyrim. People there reckon there’ll be a rebellion against the Empire soon. East of Whiterun, the women are more likely to spit on ya than kiss ya when you’re walking about in Imperial red.”

“Huh, I thought you liked your women with a little fire in them.” I retorted.

Harald burst out laughing. “Always lookin’ on the bright side, eh, not many left like you in the world is there, Tertius?”

I smiled back. “Not that I know of. Must be that famous Colovian pig-headedness: we get it from our cousins up north, after all.”

Harald playfully punched me in the shoulder, as we continued marching. The birds were singing peacefully as a gentle breeze swayed the heads of the wheat stalks in a lazy wave. Cicadas started buzzing in the summer heat, as a Bosmer Legionnaire approached the younger me from the back of the caravan.

“Sir, the Guildsmen are requesting that we take another halt, they’re too tired to continue without a little more rest and food,” he said.

“Again?!” Harald exclaimed. “I knew it was a mistake to have these Fighter’s Guild nancy-boys reinforce us for this. Can’t even march ten bloody miles without their feet achin’. Not worth the coin the Legion’s paying.”

With a motion of my hand I stilled him. “That’s enough for now, Harald. It’s their Novices that we’re dealing with, after all. Their Masters figured it’d be beneath anyone but them to send on a routine escort. We’ll stop, for now, but this time, they’ll be sending someone to forage for more water.”

The Bosmer returned a salute, and ran off to the back of the column. I then ordered that the carts be stopped, the mules untethered and watered, and the men to form a defensive perimeter before allowing half to rest while the other half stood alert.


“The patience you show is admirable,” the Exemplar started, “it is clear that internally you may feel contempt and disdain for people, yet you hold yourself to treat them as you would your friends, and even in such small displays an eternity of gratitude will come of it.”

The day seemed to be continuing on lazily, as men drank water and weak wine from their skins, and bread and salt pork was passed around those men who were resting, when all of the sudden the whistle of arrows broke out from the wheat fields on either side of the caravan. One of the Guild Novices was struck square in the chest, his cries of pain as he fell to the ground alerting the rest of the formation.

“Ambush! Lock shields and form a perimeter around the carts!” I began shouting.

Another guild novice fell to a stray arrow before guildsmen and legionnaires alike formed a rough circle around the carts. Arrows continued to whizz by or thud into shields harmlessly: the lack of substantial accuracy indicating that we were facing inexperienced fighters, most likely Breton insurrectionists who just picked up arms against the Empire.


Soon the arrows ran out, and a couple dozen rag-tag Breton warriors, armed with simple axes, clubs, and spears charged from out of the wheat, trying to intimidate the formation with their war cries, but a note of hidden fear could be picked up from their tones. In any case, our men were unmoved as shields crashed, and just as soon as the Breton rebels charged a majority of them were cut down in only minutes of melee. Soon the survivors began to retreat back into the fields, scattering every which way to save their lives. The men guarding the carts, especially the young guildsmen, were chomping at the bit to try and pursue the rebels, but not trusting in their judgment, my younger self issued the order:

“Legionnaires, split off into pairs and track the rebels, do not engage unless necessary. Guildsmen, guard the carts and tend to the wounded, we shall return within the hour.”

The young Guildsmen were visibly irritated at being relegated to such an inglorious duty, but knowing full well that they were paid to follow orders, complied reluctantly.

I took Harald with me as the other legionnaires split off and went off at double time in order to catch up to their quarry.

“An ordinary day in the life of a legionnaire,” the Exemplar said in a calm manner, “vigorously holding the line against the foes of the Empire, but with the restraint expected of any master of a trade, just as the Legion makes war theirs. But what’s to be admired in this case is not how you hold yourself to the strictures of your vocation, but how you have gone beyond it.”


As the Exemplar finished his thought, the flow of time hastened as an hour or so flew by in only moments, with my younger self and Harald following the blood trail of an injured insurgent to a humble looking farmstead: a half-ruined windmill sitting right next to a thatched cottage. We were just a dozen or so yards away from it when an arrow whistled out of one of the windows of the cottage and struck Harald in his left thigh.

“Damnit! Damn them! Damn this damn Province!!!” Harald blurted out angrily, as he fell to his knees in pain.

My younger self kneeled right next to him, holding a shield to cover him and the wounded Nord.

“Harald, are you alright, can you walk?” I asked.

“My Ysmir, if only I could,” he replied through gritted teeth, “if I could, I’d give those Breton snakes a thrashing the likes of which they’ve never seen! Just do me a favor, sir, and give them what for, will ya!”

I nodded in gruff acknowledgement, and slowly advanced on the cottage, shield raised to prevent meeting the same fate as Harald.


“You approached that hovel expecting to come face to face with death poised on a knife’s edge, just as any warrior would,” the Exemplar intoned, “but little did you know what you would face would be more complicated than the ordinary kill or be killed of Legion life.”

No sooner did the Exemplar finish his thought did I finally reach the door of the cottage and with one great heave forced my way through with my shield at the ready. As I crossed the threshold, an arrow struck my shield harmlessly. I brushed the blow aside and raised my sword high, prepared to deliver a finishing blow to whoever was unlucky to have loosed that shot, but what I found gave my younger self pause.



Inside was a young Breton boy, no older than fourteen, holding a short hunting bow, shaking at my presence. He stood in front of a wounded man in his late 30’s, bloody cloth wrappings applied on his torso, with a little girl of ten tending to them. No doubt, he was the father of these two. Everyone in the cottage stood still, utterly silent for a moment, not knowing what to do. The wounded father held out his hand in a meek request for mercy on my part, and my heart, ever so sensitive to such a display of vulnerability, gave in. I sheathed my sword, drawing a sigh of relief from the man and his son, still trembling from coming face to face with what would have been his demise.


The father spoke first: “I know you’re to owe me nothing but a traitor’s death, but I beseech you, at the very least hear what I have to say, and if you are to dispense justice, do so to me, and spare my little ones.”

I rose a hand in a conciliatory gesture. “I shall hear what you have to say, but be quick about it, the man your son wounded is still out there, clinging to his life.”

The man cleared his throat and began anew: “You stand before a broken family. These barren fields you stand on belong to me. Their mother…my lovely wife, took ill three years ago and passed away. If the Gods weren’t already so cruel in this act, they did me another injustice and struck my crops with a foul blight. We have not seen a good harvest since she has passed, and we have done what little we can to survive. We’ve peddled all of our belongings, worked for our neighbors, even poached when we could, but it was still so hard to make ends meet.”

The father sat up, wincing in pain, as he positioned himself to continue his yarn. “Then, just the other day, the guerrillas came by, promised the boy and I if we were to fight for them and ambush Imperial supply caravans, we would take our share of as many provisions as we needed. We had but one choice: starve or rebel. Well, you know the rest…”

My younger self paced the cottage, weighing his conscience. Suddenly the girl broke away from her father in tears and threw herself at my feet, clutching them tightly.

“Please sir, please! Don’t take my father away!” She pleaded.

Her brother reprimanded her, and told her to back away from me, but their father told him to leave her sister be.


The Exemplar chuckled: the first time I’ve heard one of these specters express emotion of any kind. “Nothing is more moving than the devotion of a child. Perhaps you considered her father to be a criminal deserving of, at the very least, spending the rest of his life in a lightless dungeon, but you knew in your heart of hearts that these children have not earned the loss of another of their parents.”

My younger self, looking on the girl clutching at his leg with pity, removed his helmet and patted the girl’s back, telling her to back up as he knelt to meet her eye to eye, and then spoke. “Very well, little one, your family can receive a pardon, at least on my behalf.”

My younger self then took out a purse of coins and put it into her hands.

“There are forty septims in this purse, stay here until your father is well enough to travel. Go find the village of Koeglin, near Wayrest. They are in need of fishermen there, and I think they can make good use of you and your family. Stay silent for now, I’ll make sure the other legionnaires think this place is deserted.”

The little Breton girl smiled, and nodded in thanks before running off to her father and brother again. I replaced my helmet back on my head, stood upright, and left, but not before giving them a blessing of Zenithar to help them on their travels.

I hurried over to the injured Harald, who found some cover over by a low stone fence. “Did ya get ‘em, Tertius?” he asked. I nodded. “Aye, one unlucky archer, bleed out, but not before he spilt out some information. Told me the men who hit us was all their little warband had before passing on. We should get going now before the caravan decides to leave without us.”

I knelt down to bandage Harald’s wounds better, using some of my cloak I was wearing to fashion a tourniquet as well, before wrapping his arm around my shoulder and shuffling off with him.


“People often talk about the strength of warriors,” the Exemplar said, “of the nerve it takes to kill. I find it both easy and selfish, especially to those without reverence to the Gods and to their creation. It takes a stronger will to show mercy, and the world is often off for the better from it, as the fruit of your decision here will soon show.”

Soon my view snapped to that of a well-furnished home in the usual High Rock style. Gathered at a table were the two children, this time washed up and less gaunt than before. Their father walked in with a cooked salmon and a tall bread, a beaming smile on his face as he set the food down. The three of them said prayers of thanks to the Divines and began to dig into this simple feast.

“Your advice to the girl was well placed,” the Exemplar said with a hint of pride in his voice, “indeed, that family found opportunity and prosperity in Koeglin. They chartered themselves to haul nets with the local fishermen, and indeed their hauls have been great, such that not only could they feed themselves, but they have made enough over to buy themselves a new homestead, find the young boy an apprenticeship to the village carpenter, and even get the girl admitted to a seminary for the local priestesses of Mara, all in the span of a year. No longer did they resort to brigandry and insurrection to live on by: your act of mercy gave this family a second chance, and now they live happy honest lives. This is not a tale uncommon among the people of the world, and by your hand perhaps more can be given a chance like them. All you must do is look into the hearts of men and mer and judge them in the same way you wish to be judged, should you find yourself in their misfortunes. Do this, and Stendarr will bless you with the warmth and hospitality of others all the days of your life.”


And with that, my consciousness inevitably returned from the lazy sun of High Rock back to the chill of Skyrim. Looking out the windows of the tower, I can see that evening was fast approaching. Giving the vigilants a handful of septims for their trouble, and for permission to stay the night at the tower, I set out a meal of myself and fodder for Julia, then tethering her to a sapling and setting out a bedroll for myself, I unwound and fell asleep.

[Swaeft]

Nice update! It's heartening to see that our protagonist has some empathy in him. Good descriptions for the ambush and subsequent chase, and you portrayed the mercenaries exactly as how I think they'd feel - get paid, do work, move on.

Your word count is also quite high, which others may dislike, but you have mah seal of approval, great effort! Appreciate the spacing too Maybe a few more screenshots would help, but overall its some really nice work here, have some rep on me!

[Alwyn]

I agree with Swaeft, the insights into the main character's motivations show us attractive features of his personality. I like the contrast between the history of the Imperials (and others) and the action in the ambush.

[TheKnightofDay]

Author's Note: Well, this is it. The final shrine! As the last stage in this first chapter of Tertius' life comes closer to its conclusion, I just wanted to say how appreciative I am of those who have stuck around, even during my extended absence last year. It really has been fun practicing my writing skills and letting the character of Tertius Valerius come to life both through his backstory and the events in game, and I hope you all had fun learning about him too! And for those of you a little uncomfortable with some of the longer posts of earlier...unfortunately this chapter won't be too much different
However starting in the next chapter, I will try to chop up the events into more managable chunks: instead of try to portray a single day or questline in one whole post, I will attempt to break those things into different parts that all combined constitute a single chapter. Thanks and enjoy this new chapter!

Chapter 15: The Circle
4^th of Hearthfire, 4E201

I woke up at sunrise. The handful of Vigilants at the tower offered to let me pray with them during their morning services, and I took them up on their offer. I couldn’t help but keep thinking about the final shrine in my pilgrimage: my trip back to the Shrine of Arkay, and the sense of foreboding I had when I saw it earlier. Once I was done with my prayers, and shared a bowl of porridge for breakfast with the Vigilants, I had the sudden urge to see Sheliah again. It had been years since I last saw her, and one or two since I last received a letter from her. After seeing her in my vision at the Shrine of Mara, I was really curious to see how she was. Asking for a scrap of paper and an envelope, I took a traveler’s set of pen and ink that I had carried around with me since leaving High Rock but never used, and I began to write a letter, which I hoped to give to an itinerant bard on the road, for I knew there was many in Skyrim.

And by divine providence or sheer coincidence, when I reached the road to Riften, I found such a bard, and with a donation of a couple of septims, I entrusted the sealed envelope to the skald. The letter, which I had finished before then, read:


My Dearest Sheliah,

I hope this letter finds you well, in fact, I pray to Zenithar that this letter finds you at all. It has been so long since our last correspondence, that I am hoping beyond hope that this reaches you. I have heard you still reside in Blacklight, so trusting in the nomadic nature of bards and minstrels, I have entrusted this message to one such poet: a Nordic skald I met in Skyrim. If all goes as intended, either he or a colleague of his will deliver this letter straight to you, seal unbroken.


To assuage any anxiety you might have had for my wellbeing in the past years, I should probably say sooner rather than later that I am well, in fact I’m probably in the best shape of my life. The events of these past two weeks, however, have been…strange, to say the least. I was forced to abandon my post in High Rock, as a superior officer arrived at our garrison that evidently had some sort of vendetta over my family and conspired for my demise, and my comrades had to fake my death and spirit me away to Skyrim. I crossed the Druadach Mountains into the province, and have been on the road ever since. I’ve already visited Falkreath, Markarth, Solitude, and Morthal, and have laid eyes on Windhelm and Riften from afar.


I guess what I have been doing of late is, for lack of a better word, a pilgrimage. Since leaving High Rock, I have been chasing rumors over the location of some family heirlooms, which have somehow ended up in a shipwreck somewhere off the coast of Skyrim. I have been receiving…visions, visions which I believe have been sent to me by the Divines themselves. I don’t think I can adequately describe the metaphysical implications of this journey in one letter, but I suppose I can suffice myself to say that it has been as much of a spiritual as it has been a physical trial. Though the elements here are cruel, these visions have cut an even crueler wound into my soul, laying bare before me my inadequacies, my sins, and my ignorance.


It all started in Markarth. I was wrongfully imprisoned by corrupt watchmen in the Cidhna Mines, the reputation of which you no doubt are familiar of, even in far off Morrowind. I was there for four days, enduring torment of the body and of the mind. To escape, I had to take the life of an innocent man, something I don’t think I can ever fully forgive myself for. I had made up my mind before that I would rather rot away in that cell than commit such an act, but I was visited by an apparition, one of my ancestor. I never told you who he was, I have always been afraid of being compared to him as a child, my every action scrutinized through the lens of that man’s legacy, of being placed against my will in his shadow. Now, having experienced what I have these past few days, I fear this no longer. My ancestor, my great-great-great grandfather, was the Champion of Cyrodiil. He visited me in that dark cell, and told me though as lionized as he is now, his origins were far more ignoble than even I imagined, but that did not stop him from repenting and making up for those mistakes with greater deeds later in life, and he urged me to do the same. So that’s what I did. I’m not proud of what I’ve done, so I’ve dedicated my life henceforth to serving the people of Tamriel, but in order to do that, I must look inward and free myself.


I’ve spent hours upon hours meditating on the teachings of the Nine before their shrines in the wilderness of Skyrim, hoping to find insight into my virtues as well as my faults, and how to become a man of faith and justice. I got what I asked for, but as the old saying goes, be careful of what you wish for. The Gods had sent me visions of my past, showing my good deeds, but in equal measure also my baser actions. Words cannot describe the guilt that these visions had inspired, and I have one shrine left, and my gut tells me it might show me the hardest lesson of all. But remembering the little things of good I have done in my life, especially thinking of you and the times we have shared, I know that I can be strong, and that, though the wounds are deep, I will heal with time, and in helping myself, I will learn how to help others.


I do pray that you manage to get a hold of this letter, and if the Gods are kind, that you write back, and that your missive finds me as well. Regardless of that, I want to let you know that I do miss you, and though I feel that our paths are forever estranged, and that we are destined for others, I will profess till the day I join my fathers in Aetherius that there is a part of me that will always love you.

May Mara smile on you and your kin,
Your Tertius


With that I took my leave of the bard and continued on my way down the road. I rode Julia swiftly, and with great discomfort. I was anxious to finish my pilgrimage and see this last vision, to get it over with at last and see whether or not my dread was warranted. I sped through the Rift and the Tar Fields of southern Eastmarch that I had encountered yesterday. Passersby on the road watched me with great curiosity: I must have appeared mad to them, but I buried all thoughts of self-consciousness and focused on my task at hand. As I crossed the Yorgrim River and made my way back into the mountains of the Pale, I retraced my steps on the path and found my way to that same forlorn pass that I had encountered earlier. When I had gotten there, it was a couple hours after midday, and the winds were calm. Almost eerily so. I also heard no trace of wolves, which was odd, remembering my encounters with them the last time I had crossed this pass. Soon I found my way back to the altar where idol to Arkay lay, and I prepared to begin my prayers.


Prostrating myself before the Shrine of Arkay, I began to chant the Command of Arkay: “Honor the earth, its creatures, and the spirits, living and dead. Guard and tend the bounties of the mortal world, and do not profane the spirits of the dead.” Eventually, as it was in my previous experiences, I came to the vast whiteness that I had seen before. Soon a soft yet stern voice spoke out.


“I am the Exemplar of Arkay. For nearly all mortals, the teachings of Arkay are the most difficult of the Gods to incorporate. It is understandable, as mortals see him as the master of the realms of the dead. But few pious individuals, like you, know that this isn’t all to Arkay. Verily, Arkay is a god of birth as well of death, and of the cycle of these events that play and replay throughout the lives of Nirn’s people. To keep this cycle intact is a matter of great importance, as it is a facet of nature itself. To show you this, Arkay will present to you the hardest lesson of all. Behold, the Lesson of Arkay.”


My vision slowly reassembled to the site I had seen in my first vision: my parents’ home, when I was an infant. This time, in that dark hovel that my spiritual journey had begun, my mother was sitting on a stool, sobbing softly. I could hear the clang of something metallic on the other side of the hut. Soon, walking through into the room, I could see my father. He was clad in his old Legion armor, with the pomp trappings of a centurion. His appearance stood as a stark contrast to the rest of the hut, for he appeared to me resplendent, like a king of old Cyrodiil, grey with age yet with the strength gained from years of campaign in his frame. He knelt next to my mother and embraced her in his arms.
“I…I knew some day it would come…but I never thought I wouldn’t be ready,” she said with a heavy heart.
My father slowly stroke the flowing locks of her hair.
“I know, my dearest Julia, I know. Yet our day has come, and the Gods await.”
“I’m so afraid…” she said, tears flowing down her cheeks.
“So am I, but I am stronger knowing that I shall face death by your side.”
A chilling revelation shot through my mind.
“No…no… I know what this day is, I cannot watch this…” I said to myself in grief.


The Exemplar responded in a strong yet compassionate tone: “You must. Tamriel is a land of beauty, but also of pain and misery, and all that walk on Nirn from the lowliest moth to the haughtiest Altmer mage, will face the terror of death. Even if they do not fear it for themselves, they must witness it take the lives of those that they love. I know this is difficult, but for those that defend the people of Tamriel, this is a fate that they must steel themselves against; to mourn, but never to let break them.”


I was still very reluctant to witness the horror that I thought would inevitably come, but I felt that I had no choice but to obey.
My parents held each other in their arms for what seemed like hours, and then they parted. Their cheeks were stained red with tears.
“But, what of Tertius dear?” my mother asked.
“Like we discussed. I’ve made the preparations. They won’t find him.”
“Secundus, promise me, on the souls of our forefathers, they’ll never lay a finger on him.”
“I promise on everything sacred in this life, my love. I’ll see the world burn before I’ll let that happen.”
Julia looked away, absorbing the situation. Eventually she sighed and spoke again: “Okay, I’m ready.”


My father nodded in turn, and he helped her get up. She walked over to a crib, where a boy no more than two years of age was standing, leaning against the rails: my younger self. She lifted me out of the crib and leaned me on her shoulders. I was softly cooing as she began to hum a lulling tune. My vision followed them outside of the hut and into the Great Forest of Cyrodiil at dusk, the sun setting in the distance. My parents and I trekked to a copse of poplar saplings. There was a stack of hay laid under a particularly large sapling, with an assortment of empty crates. It was all arranged in such a way that it formed a hollow box would hide me and at the same time not allow me to be able to climb out and get lost. At the bottom of it was a basket with hay and a blanket laid there as well as a wooden toy cow and a few pieces of soft bread. My mother laid me there to rest: I had fallen asleep in the time it took my family and me to get there. She swaddled me in the blanket and kissed me on the forehead.
“How will the guards find him?” my mother asked.
“I carved a cyphered message on the flagstone on the side of the hut. Only a Legion veteran could decrypt it. Those thugs will think nothing of it.”
My mother nodded to herself. “Okay…okay…”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and the two of them walked away.


When the two returned to the hut, they saw a dozen men in black leather armor standing near the front, leisurely propping themselves against the trunks of some trees. One of them, a burly Nord with a large axe hung at his side, was eating an apple noisily. When he saw my father in his Legion armor, he laughed heartily and tossed the apple away.
“Come now, Secundus! You really think you can face us twelve against one? An old-timer like you, I don’t think you can face just one of us, even Ethrys there.”
A Bosmer off to his left shouted a curse in his direction, which he shrugged off again in a bout of laughter.
My father drew his sword with his right hand, and beckoned my mother to get behind him with the other.
The Nord stood upright and brandished his axe.
“There’s no need to get violent, my friend. If you give us what we came here for, we can part ways, everyone for the better.”
My father just spat on the ground.
“Can’t say I’m surprised” The Nord remarked. He smiled wryly.
He nodded at one of his lackeys, a young, thin Imperial, drew a notched, rusty iron sword and charged straight at my father. He took a solid fighting stance, and as the bandit approached him deflected the boy’s blow and in an instant buried his blade deep in the boy’s stomach. The bandit had a look of astonished horror in his eyes as they bulged out of their sockets. My father freed his blade from his gut and cast his body to the ground. With a flick of his blade my father extended his right arm to his side, showing the bloody sword to the bandits. The Nord nearly fell over laughing.
“Ah, somehow I knew from the day I met him that would be that boy’s fate: killed at the hands of a dead man. Malik, J’azir, if you please.”


From the crowd a Redguard and a Khajiit bandit walked out with swords drawn. They charged them, bellowing as they sprinted. My father resumed his stance. As the two bandits approached him at full charge, he dodged the blow from the Redguard and in a riposte made a slash at the Khajiit’s legs, hamstringing him. The cat gave a cry of pain while the Redguard gave a loud bellow and recovered his balance. My father and him exchanged a few hacks and parries when the Redguard made a blunder, opening his side to a keen thrust from my father’s sword, felling him before his comrade could bring himself from the pain of his wound. Before the Khajiit could bring himself up to square off, my father was upon him, and decapitated him with a savage blow. Now the Nord looked annoyed.
“Now you’re starting to make me mad, old man. Men, attack!” At this the surviving nine goons of the gang drew their weapons and charged forward.
My father hardened his expression and in an ear-shattering cry shouted his old cohort’s war cry.
“UNBENT, UNBROKEN!”
At this, the bandits were stunned for a moment as my father charged forward in all of his fury. He appeared as if Tiber Septim himself strode from the halls of legend and walked among mortal men again. He tore into their ranks. He felled one bandit, then another, and another with vicious abandon. He fought them nine-to-one, and yet managed to slay five of them. I would have been smiling, had I not known what was to come. Soon he came face to face with the Nord in charge of the gang.
“Back off, you damned lily-livered fools, this bastard’s mine!” he bellowed to his men.


The two men starred at each other intensely. Then the Nord made his first move, raising his axe high above his head, his lungs issuing out a horrid screech. My father parried this hack and attempted to swing a counter-blow, but the Nord caught this in time, and the two warriors were engaged in an even melee. It appeared as if a mighty tide was clashing against a pillar of stone in an eternal duel. Eventually, my father began to tire, and make small mistakes that cost him cuts and nicks from the Nord’s axe. Then he made a thrust that the Nord had dodged that took him off balance. The Nord seized my father’s outstretched sword arm with his free hand, and took his fist and punched my father in the face, stunning him. As he reeled back, the Nord readied his axe for a hack, and brought it down savagely on my father’s shoulder. The blow peeled past the steel plates of his armor and sunk in deep.


“No,” I said to myself through clenched teeth, cringing at the sight. My father turned deathly pale, as he meekly turned his gaze to the axe head buried in his shoulder. He crumpled onto his knees, wheezing softly. The Nord placed his boot on my father’s chest, then wrested the axe from him, tossing my father’s body to the ground. My mother was sobbing uncontrollably far off, screaming curses at the bandits as she threw herself on the ground in sorrow.
“What a shame that he had to be Imperial. There’ll be no rematch in Sovngarde for us,” the Nord said to himself as he wiped the blood off his axe-head on his cloak.
He pointed to another bandit, another Nord, only younger. “Handle that damn woman! The rest of you, search the property! They’ve hidden all of the good stuff, no doubt.”
The younger Nord went over to my mother. “C’mere, lass. The boss’ll figure out a use for you yet.”
My mother picked herself up slowly, and catching the bandit by surprise sunk a dagger into his throat. The eyes in the bandit’s head rolled back and he fell to the ground, his wound gurgling with blood and breath.
The older Nord shook his head violently. “Bahh! Are all of you this daft!?”


He went over to my mother, and kicked the dead bandit’s body away. She held her bloody dagger in her hand, coiled to strike. The Nord simply swatted the blade away from her hand and grasped her by the throat, lifting her off her feet as he held her above her head. The pain from watching this became almost unbearable.
“You know, I’ve always respected your husband,” he said to her, “so much so that instead of letting my boys have their way with you, I’ll give you a quick death. I’ll even let you choose how you want it all to end.”
My mother was gasping for breath, when she managed to say: “How about…this...”
From out of her clenched left hand fell to the ground a small scroll that started to glow red. The Nord looked at it with wide eyes.
“By Talos, you Imperial bi…”


Suddenly an intense white flame erupted outwards, engulfing the two. Nothing was left in the aftermath, save a patch of scorched grass where the two once stood. All that were left alive was the Bosmer Ethrys and a young Argonian that looked to be in his teens. Ethrys closed his eyes and shook his head.
“By the Eight, who knew we’d out last them all. C’mon, search the place then torch it. We’ll ditch our clothes and make for Hammerfell in the morning.”
The Argonian nodded in reply, and soon I could see them ransacking the hovel. They didn’t find much, only a few trinkets and a handful of septims for their trouble. They then gathered the bodies of the dead, including my father’s, who they stripped of his sword, and placed them on a pyre in front of the hut. They then lit fire to it and the house, and left into the night. My heart felt like it was ready to burst from its chest.


“Such a fate is not uncommon in this troubled times for Tamriel,” the Exemplar spoke in a conciliatory voice, “The pain you feel is one shared by thousands of families. But where there is death, there is always new life, as you will see.”
Soon, the nighttime scene transitioned into daylight, as the sun rose on the charred remains of my parents’ hovel. The pyre of bodies was smoldering, ash lazily floated away in the breeze, as I could see a trio of Legion soldiers sifting through the ruins.
“Oi! I found something over here, etched in the stone!” one of them called out to his comrades. They rushed over to where my father left his message: there was a strong Orc, a tall Imperial, and a female Breton legionnaire gathered there.
“It’s in a Legion cypher?” the Imperial said to himself, “who knew.”
The Orc slapped him in the back of his head. “Of course it is, boy! Don’t you know who owned this place? Centurion Secundus Valerius Colovians. The man’s a damn war hero. Or was…Malacath devour the entrails of whoever did this…”
“Can you read it?” The Bretoness asked.
“Aye, I trained to be a courier for the Oculatus, you know” the Imperial boasted. “It’s telling us to find a grove of…poplar saplings? Centurion Valerius left something there, and we’re to take it to a Tasilis Herannus.”
“Makes sense” the Breton woman replied, “Herannus was a centurion too, the two fought together in the war, I think.”
The Orc picked himself up. “Well come on now, get goin’ you two.”


The three soldiers marched through the wooded trails that snaked behind the charred ruins. As they approached the poplars, they could hear crying on the wind. The three of them looked at each other confused, when the crying continued, this time louder. The soldiers followed the sound all the way to the jumble of hay and crates in the middle of the grove. They looked inside the hollow box to find me, my face beet red from crying through the night.
“Is this the thing the stone told us to find?” the Imperial asked.
The Orc slapped him across the back of the head again. “What’d you think? He’s the only thing here!”
“He must be Valerius’ boy” the young Breton woman said, taking off her helmet. My infant self eased up as he looked at the Bretoness, his fear was abated by her soft face.
“I think he kinda likes you, Violette” the Imperial said to her.
The Orc crossed his arms, flaring his nostrils. “Well, I’m not touching the thing, that’s for damn sure.”
“Aww, come here little one,” the Breton woman said as she picked me up out of the basket I laid in, and propped me on her shoulders. “We’ll take him to the camp. Legate Quintus will know where to find this Herannus, anyways.”
The Orc rolled his eyes at this. “Malacath preserve me. Fine! As long as the two of you carry the child, and leave me out of this once we reach the Legate.”
With that the three soldiers gathered themselves and set out eastward.


“Though this tragedy took the lives of your parents,” the Exemplar intoned, “Arkay intended that their end would be a beginning for you. All the events of your life: the friends you’ve met, the battles you’ve fought, and the journeys you’ve undertaken, all of them stem from this moment. The strength that beats within your heart have come this, and though the memory is bitter, you are better for it. Such is the cycle of life. Like a wildfire that torches a forest, the green of the trees may give way to the black and grey of ash and charcoal, soon from those ashes new saplings will arise, and they will grow to become a new forest, mightier than the one that stood before. Death is not an end, it is simply an event, one that changes the lives of both the living and the dead, and in the grand scheme of Creation things are made for the better as a result. There are those without wisdom who would break the cycle for their selfish ends, like foul necromancers and liches. You must defend it from them and preserve the honor of the dead, for in undeath there is no peace nor strength, only emptiness and suffering. Know this, and Arkay will bless you and those you love with a long and fruitful life.”


At last, my vision returned once more to Tamriel, and then I could see that I had shed tears during my vision. My heart was still heavy from the tragic death of my parents, but I understood that the Exemplar had not spoken lies. Death is not such a foul thing, and though I will not impart it on any who do not deserve it, I was determined to respect its power and preserve its sanctity.
“One day,” I said to myself, “One day, Aetherius will witness our reunion.” I dusted myself off, and stood. Then a series of images passed through my eyes: of an icy sea and jagged peaks, of a ship wreck and a chest that glowed faintly with a holy aura. Then I saw a map of Skyrim, and off its northern coast near the town of Dawnstar I saw a point of light.
“That’s it!” I said to myself. “The relics are there!”
I hurried to Julia in an excited pace, and mounting her in a rush I sped off into the road with all due haste and made for the coast.

[Alwyn]

The letter sums up well the physical and spiritual harships which Tertius has faced and the Vision of Arkay sounds like the hardest one of all for him. This is a fine ending for this stage of the story and a new beginning.

[TheKnightofDay]

Author's Note: Ah, so this is a bit awkward. It's been 20 months since my last post on this thread, Tertius' first adventure is almost finished and an important crossroads in his life is on the horizon, but for some reason I stopped right in the middle of all that. What happened? If you've been following this story before, you know this isn't the first time I took an extended hiatus, I had an 11 month one between July 2017 and June 2018, but 20 months now? Where did I go wrong? Well, I could keep explanations short and just say there was a lot of stress and excitement involved, but that wouldn't be fair. Since my last post on November 2018 I was going into my last year of my bachelor's degree in school, and after I graduated in May 2019 there was a period of time where I had to float around and find work. Unfortunately I had a lot on my mind at the time, so the last thing I was thinking about in those days was coming back onto the TW Forums to crank out another chapter of Tertius' story. Lately however things have begun to improve, I went into the military full-time and even though it's hard work sometimes I'm doing pretty well for myself. The pay is stable, I've got a roof of my own over my head, and for the next decade or so I have a solid plan about where I want my life to go, though I'll admit COVID-19 tried it's best to derail everything. In other words, the storm has past and all I can see are smooth seas ahead, so I feel confident and I can take time to come back to old hobbies. So as a consolation gift, I'll be making the next chapter a two-parter, with the first part putting an interesting spin on the gap in Tertius' adventure (spoiler, it might get a little meta). Not only that, but in the course of the next few weeks I'll be editing all of my old posts and making changes to the spelling, grammar, and formatting to make it all easier on the eye. So without further ado, please enjoy this long awaited update:

Chapter 16, Part One: Journey's End
5th of Hearthfire, 4E201

I thundered down the coastal road with Julia fraught with excitement. I would finally be able to finish my quest and reclaim my family’s relics. I wrapped my furs around me tighter as the winds began to pick up in strength, but I was not intimidated by the icy blasts. I had a job to do. As I moved westward to find the cove in my visions I came across a rocky ridge with the path steadily rising above it. I did not seem to recall the ridge being where it was when I traveled this path in the opposite direction a couple of days ago, but then again my memory was never perfect. I took Julia up the slope slowly, let her rest for a minute or so at the summit of the slope, and then rode her down the trail again at a gallop. As I went into the valley on the other side, things seemed a bit more familiar, though the familiarity struck me in a weird sort of way. I put such concerns in the back of my mind and pressed on.

After another hour of riding I came across another ridge in my path. I certainly didn’t remember this ridge being there either, yet it still seemed familiar. I climbed it anyway and rode on. After another hour of riding I came across yet another ridge. This time I could feel that something was amiss, but I did not have time to wonder about what it was, even though the sun looked like it was the same time of day as it was a few hours ago. I traversed the ridge again and rode at a faster gallop then before. Further down the trail however I encountered yet another ridge. I had just about enough at this point. I got down off Julia and scanned the surrounding terrain. Everything seemed eerily familiar, like I was seeing something that I passed on a daily basis. As I scanned the terrain, I noticed a rock formation that I had definitely seen before. In fact, I had seen it earlier today…multiple times…

“By the Nine…” I said aloud as I fumbled through my things to look through my map. I found it and unfolded it to look at it, but when I did I found only a bunch of writing in it.
“I must finish my cleaning, sir,” I read to myself, “the mistress will have my head if I do not!
Cleaning, eh? I have something for you. Here” I paused,”polish my spear.”
“By the Gods” I said incredulously, “did someone change out my map with the ‘Lusty Argonian Maid?’”
I kept thinking to myself, scanning more of the terrain as I did. I found more features of the terrain that I recognized earlier today, all of which were one hundred percent the same as far as my recollection could surmise. But I kept telling myself that this couldn’t be.
“It’s as if I’m…going in circles?” I queried, not expecting an answer, but unexpectedly I got one:
“Oh, what brought you to that conclusion, oh mighty one?” a female voice said sarcastically.
My hand went to the pommel of the Sword of Arkay and I swung my gaze behind me to the path. No one was there.
“Show yourself!” I cried
“Over here, genius!”
I swung back around to the opposite side of the path, this time my sword drawn in frustrated annoyance. Again there was nobody I could see.
“I’m not in the mood to be playing games here!” I shouted as a challenge.
“Neither am I, but you seem to have a problem playing along, so here we are twiddling our thumbs. Well, you’re twiddling your thumbs, at least.”
I turned back around and I looked at Julia.
“Has two and two come together yet?” I saw her say.
I immediately dropped my sword and backed away in alarm. “Kynareth’s Bosom!”
“Well now, there’s no need to take the Lady’s name in vain, now is there Tertius? That’s my goddess too you know.”
“Y-y-you…you can…talk?”
“Ah quick on the uptake as always I see. And here I was thinking you were sharper than most bipeds.”
“But how is such a thing possible?”
“We’re stuck running around in circles in the middle of an icy tundra and you want to stand here wondering how I can talk? Tertius, I don’t think you have your priorities in order.”
I picked up my sword and sheathed it. “Well judging by that smart tone of voice you have, you already have a solution for that, don’t you?”
“There’s the Tertius I know!” Julia said, whinnying with joy. “It so happens I do, you’ve just got to trust me. And believe me, you’re going to need to trust me once we get to where we’re going. We need to be looking for your Writer of Fate.”

I looked at Julia bemused. Writer of Fate? What manner of nonsense is that? I thought for a quick second, then said to myself what harm could come of any of this, and proceeded to mount myself back in my saddle.
“Oh before I forget,” Julia said, “would you mind cutting back on the sweet rolls from now on? I swear you’re heavier everyday.”
I gave her a quick jab with my spurs.
“Hah,” she seemed to laugh, “still worth it!”
She took me off the trail and we rode on for a bit towards the mountains. The wind was getting even bitterer, forcing me to clutch my furs even tighter. After an hour of riding through the snow, we came across the mouth of a cave. It was dark and narrow, but the cave ceiling looked high enough to fit Julia inside as well as me, though I would have to dismount and follow her on foot. As I did Julia seemed to sigh with relief.
“Glad that’s over.”
“You know,” I said to her in reply, “I would never have taken you to be the sarcastic sort.”
Julia snorted. “With what we see regularly, one needs to be a little sarcastic just to preserve their sanity.”
I shrugged. “You certainly have a point. Maybe Pelagius the Mad wasn’t so far off his rocker when he tried to get his horse appointed to the Elder Council.”
“It would have been a victory for four-legged creatures everywhere if that went through.”
As we started to walk into the cave I lit a torch and moved forward. The cave floor was much flatter than most caverns I’ve visited in Skyrim. This would have seemed odd, had I not already encountered talking horses and infinitely repeating terrain. Pressing on after a few minutes I started to see a faint light further down into the tunnel.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” I asked Julia.
“Horses see farther than humans, Tertius, of course I see the light.”
“Right,” I said to myself shrugging. “Of course.”



Stepping into the light, eyes were blinded for a moment. I squinted hard, and in a couple of seconds my vision returned to me, blurrily at first but then I could start making out objects, though I could sense that Julia was no longer at my side. I saw that I was in a small room. I could see a wooden wardrobe to my left and a dresser to my right, next to a night stand. It had a strange looking apparatus that had the word “Keurig” written on it, with a couple of steel knobs on it. The walls were made of a strange, smooth material plastered in white. As I looked to the far end of the small room I could see a man sitting at a desk cluttered by books and other strange looking baubles. The man was wearing a red cap and a style of shirt I hadn’t seen before: it had some sort of collar, was colored in a black, yellow, and red plaid pattern, and was made of a material resembling wool. He was facing something, and though I couldn’t see what he was doing, I could hear distinct clicks and clacks. I cleared my throat.
“Uh, greetings…”
The man looked behind me then exploded out of his chair in alarm.
“What the!” he exclaimed as he grabbed a blue metal club that was placed next to him.
“Easy, easy…” I said in an apologetic tone, attempting to assuage the situation.
“Who are you and what in the hell are you doing in my apartment?” he asked, exasperated.
“What in Oblivion’s name is Hell?” I replied.
“Wait, what did you say?” The man in plaid asked.
“I said…forget about that, are you my Writer of Fate?”
“Writer of Fate? I write yeah, but Writer of Fate, I don’t know about that one, bud. Who are you?”
“I’m Tertius, I thought you would know that.”
“Tertius?” He asked, lowering his club.
“That’s right...”
“Tertius Valerius Colovans? Baron of Sutch-Colovia? Legion veteran?”
“The very same.”
The man in plaid looked confused, then setting down his metal club he slapped himself hard across the face. “Well, I’m definitely not dreaming. But that would mean you’re…real…”
“It would seem that way.” I replied.
“But you’re just a fictional character, how in God’s name is that supposed to…Jesus Christ...”
“Who is this Jesus?” I asked, “Is he an acquaintance of yours?”
“What? No. Ah! Let me think for a minute, here. So you’re here and I’m not dreaming, obviously that means you're real, but how did you manage to come to my universe from yours? Assuming it actually exists somewhere. Man this whole situation is half-baked.”
“I probably should have asked for a dictionary before leaving.” I whispered to myself.
The man in plaid scratched his head. “Look, Tertius, the short and simple of it is: I am a writer: I write about you. I write stories about you. Like your quest to get the Relics of the Crusader. Your backstory, your humor, your fights, I wrote all of that. You’re my protagonist.”
I didn’t know what that word meant. “You mean like the hero of a song?”
“Yeah, yeah, something like that.”
“So are you a servant of the Divines, or Hermaeus Mora?”
“No, I’m neither of those. Tertius, you’re in a different universe. This isn’t Nirn, this is Earth. There are no mer or magic here, and certainly no Daedra. At least not that I know of.”
“So you write my fate…of your own volition?” I asked.
“Yes, I did it because I thought it was fun. Your universe is the setting of a video game…dammit, you probably don’t know what that is. Nirn is the setting of a…a play of sorts, with actors and all of that, only we watch it through devices, devices like this.”
He pointed to a thing that resembled an ‘L’ shape, with one half covered with tiles with different letters and symbols, and the other with a bright screen of light. There were images, all kinds of them scattered around it. The word “Lenovo” was written below the screen of light.
“And people can sometimes control those actors, like through a spell. Confusing I know, but I liked it. Your world fascinated me, so I decided to make a story about a person in it. And thus you were born…sort of. I mean I started writing about you.”
I tried to mull all of this in my mind, but my brain was storming and churning like an Abeccean Sea typhoon. “Okay…so what you write about me affects me.”
“Sounds like it I guess,” the man in plaid sighed, “but why are you here anyways, I don’t suppose you’ve traveled to an alternate dimension just to have a chat with a dude that already knows everything about you.”
“Uh, yes. My horse sent me here because she said that you can solve a problem I’m having.”
“Wait, Julia told you to find me?”
“And that’s somehow stranger than this situation.”
“True enough. Where is she?”

Suddenly I could hear a whiny from behind the door of the room. The Writer pushed aside me and opened it. There in a room next to some chairs and a large bench was Julia, sniffing a rug on the floor. She noticed us and then said: “How do you do sir? My name is Julia, but you probably already know that.”
“Uh...hello?” The Writer replied, looking at his rug concerned. “Please don’t poop on that. My grandmother gave me that rug.”
“If you have to ask me that again I might just have to.” Julia snorted. “Horses don’t crap everywhere, believe it or not!”
The Writer shook his head for a second, then said “So Tertius is telling me the two of you have a problem?”
“Yes. Time keeps looping back, repeating itself if you will, and only you can stop this phenomenon.”
“Time loop, like what Groundhog Day? Shoot, almost forgot you wouldn’t understand that reference. So you’re stuck doing the same thing over and over?”
“Aye.” I interjected. “I traverse this one ridgeline and ride down a road only to come across the same ridge over and over again.”
“And how do I fit into this?”
I was puzzled. “I thought you would know.”
“Christ, I’m a writer, not an omnipotent god. How should I…” the Writer choked back his words. He muttered something under his breath then looked down at the floor, scratching the back of his head guiltily.
“What is it?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“Well…perhaps the reason is kinda…well, it might because I haven’t written about you in so long…”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I write about you episodically, like a chapter or a canto at a time, and well the last time I did that was, er let’s see. One…” He gulped audibly, “year ago.”
“A year?!”
The man in plaid raised his hands defensively and took a step back “Hey look, it’s nothing against you man. It’s just, I’ve been so busy and all…”
“Busy doing what?” I demanded.
“Well, you see, it’s just….a man’s gotta make his living you know!”
“Really? Judging by all of the scraps of food you have in your dustbin, I’d venture a guess that you haven’t left this domicile in a while.” Julia chimed in, laughing at her play on words.
“Well, it’s because of the pandemic.” The Writer replied. “I guess you would call it a plague. Our government said we shouldn’t leave our homes unless it was necessary.”
“Well, thanks to your king then we have plenty of time to solve this problem of ours.” I said, putting my hand on the Writer’s shoulder. He sighed, then beckoned the two of us to return into his bedroom. Sitting at his desk, he turned the screen of light towards him, cracked his knuckles, and began hitting the tiles.

“Okay, so we last left off with you awaking from your vision with the Exemplar of Arkay, right?” the Writer asked.
“That’s correct.” I replied.
“You found the location of the shipwreck where the Relics could be found, and now you’re riding along the coast to the cove where it’s located.”
“Also correct.”
“And when you come up to that ridge is when the time loop begins. Well, that should be easy enough, I just need to fill in the rest of the story and continue your adventure.”
“And then we’ll return to our universe? And things will be normal again?”
“That would be my guess. No harm in trying. Now let’s see here. You reach the top of the ridge, and at last you see the cove you’ve been looking for in the distance. Your heart swells with anticipation, finally seeing the fruits of your labor.”
“You mean the fruits of my labor,” Julia retorted, “I carry all of the weight in this partnership.”
“Well, Tertius is the one in the partnership meeting cold steel with cold steel, so that’s more than fair,” the Writer replied, “besides, he’s the one literally wearing pants in this relationship.” He chuckled to himself and turned back to look at me and Julia expecting mutual mirth, only to find our expressions blank. “Everybody’s a critic,” he said to himself before returning to his device. “Okay, so you see the cove, you know that the ship is totally submerged. That makes things difficult but not entirely impossible. What do you think?”
“Well, knowing that, plus the fact that it is in freezing temperatures and the need for me to haul heavy armor from the briny deep, I would bring three potions, one for water breathing, one to resist the cold, and another to increase my strength and stamina.” I replied.
“Perfect, always one step ahead. That’s my protagonist!” The Writer then proceeded to clack away at his tiles. “That’s one challenge out of the way, but now we need to add a little conflict, and address the problem of getting a boat into the scene. After all, Julia, you wouldn’t be hauling a cart with a rowboat around with you across Skyrim?”
“If Tertius had tried to force me to do that, I would have been halfway to Hammerfell before he knew it.” Julia said, looking at me with prophetic gaze after she finished speaking.
“So we need to add a fight, and the bad guys naturally would provide the boats, though unwittingly. It would make sense, right? With artifacts of such power waiting to be plucked from the ocean, there’s no conceivable way that Tertius would be the only one looking for them. Ah, why not the Thalmor? You can always rely on them to be up to some shady stuff.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t feel guilty stealing a boat from them,” I affirmed.
“My thoughts exactly,” the Writer responded, clacking away again.
After a few minutes, the Writer paused then looked back at me. “Now all that’s needed is an escape scene. Those relics may be powerful, but you’re just one man, and the Thalmor would have brought plenty of blades with them. I have just the thing, though I think I will leave that as a surprise more or less for you.” He clacked his tiles once more, this time for a long while, though once he was at the end of this spell he finally looked relaxed.

“That takes care of that!” the Writer said with gusto. “The next chapter of Tertius’ adventures, all laid out. That was actually pretty fun. I’m starting to remember why I started this story in the first place. I’m really quite ashamed I didn’t keep up with it as much as I should have.”
“So you will continue to write my fate?” I asked pleadingly.
“Sure, why not! Even if I’m busy, I should always try to find some time to release all this pent up creativity, even if it’s just a paragraph or two a day. Besides, a year’s hiatus has given me some ideas about where the story should go after this. I think you’ll come to like them.”
“I think what truly matters is if I’ll like them.” Julia interjected.
“Ah, no worries about that. The noble steed may not get all the attention she deserves, but she’ll always be appreciated in this tale. You have my word on that.”
“Well, I trust you enough.” Julia whinnied. “But if it turns out I don’t like how my story plays out, just remember I know where you live.”
At that a strange glow began to surround me and Julia, building steadily until I was again blinded by bright light, slowly fading back to darkness. The darkness then began to dissipate and soon I found myself back on Nirn on the coastal road again, the icy bite of the wind bringing me back into consciousness.

“Well, I’m back. Hopefully that will be the last I see of that predicament, right Julia?” I turned to look at Julia, who was standing beside me, lapping up some of the snow at the side of the road for water. I went over to her, gently grabbing her bridle, and started to pet her snout. She snorted gently, and nuzzled back into my hand. I produced a carrot from my knapsack and fed her. “And don’t you worry about hauling carts, I promise not to be too much of an ass, so long as you pay me the favor back in kind. Though knowing your sense of humor, you’ll say you’re already half ass by blood.” I seized the saddle and hauled myself up into my mount. “Alright, let’s go wrestle Fate, shall we?” And with that, I rode off towards the horizon, just like I always have.

[TheKnightofDay]

Chapter 16, Part Two: Journey's End
5th of Hearthfire, 4E201

The cold winds coming off the Sea of Ghosts numbed my face as I looked over a small icy bay. I had ridden hard non-stop for a day to get to the part of the coast that I had seen in my final vision. I had to stop by an inn outside of Windhelm where I found an alchemist that was traveling from Winterhold to Cyrodiil. Assuming that the Crusader’s Relics would be located on the seafloor, I knew that I would be presented with an almost insurmountable obstacle. First of all, I would be forced to go underwater for at least half an hour at the most. Second, I would have to find a way to haul a full suit of armor from the seabed up to the surface, which was no easy task even for the strongest of men. And finally, there was the threat of hypothermia from the icy waters of the sea itself. All in all, retrieving the relics would have been impossible without some sort of magical assistance. Therefore I commissioned from this alchemist three different solutions: one to allow me to breathe underwater, another to boost my strength to haul the armor ashore, and finally a draught to help my body resist the chilling effects of the seawater. I expended nearly all of what remained of my savings to get these potions, but the reward was well worth the cost. At long last, my pilgrimage would be at an end and I would be able to reclaim my family’s long lost legacy. All that was left was finding the shipwreck.


This was a task easier said than done. In my vision I recognized that there was a small bay nearby. It had a graven image of Talos carved into the rock on a small islet in its vicinity. The shipwreck would lie a league or so east of that. But Skyrim’s northern coast is full of jagged bays and rocky islands, if not for the statue of Talos acting as a landmark, the task of finding the correct bay could have taken a lifetime of searching. What I did know is that the islet I am looking for lies to the west of the Shrine of Arkay I was at almost a day ago, and that it is yards away from the main coastline itself, well within line of sight. All I would have to do is hug the waterline, and pray that I do not overlook my target. Monotonously scanning the shoreline for hours, suddenly I saw what I was looking for. The figure of a tall armored man standing triumphant over a serpent, sword poised over its jaw, though the statue was worn with age and neglect. Giving a prayer of thanksgiving to Talos I took my bearings from there. Following the shoreline I at last came near the bay that I had recognized from my vision. The only problem was I wasn’t the only one there.


I saw a camp established in the bay and being suspicious of whoever would be looking around in such a place I ducked behind a boulder and kept out of sight as I scanned the area. There was a pair of canvas tents tucked near a fire, with about five rowboats dragged up on shore at various points. I could see a pair of figures conversing with one another near the fire. The only thing I could make out was the clothing and armor they were wearing: black robes and brass colored platemail. “Damn it! What are the Thalmor doing here?” I said to myself. They would be up to no good I concluded, so it would be best if I kept out of sight. It was fortuitous enough though, as they at the very least brought boats. I found a spot to hide Julia, placed most of my gear in my saddle bags, and took off my armor, I wouldn’t need it anymore at this rate, and it would help me remain unheard. I found the rowboat beached closest to me and started creeping towards it, making sure to keep to the rocks as much as possible. Creeping forward, I managed to reach the boat without alerting the Thalmor by good fortune, so I tossed my gear into the boat and started to shove off. As I started to enter the boat and row away, the two Thalmor soldiers at last noticed me and started shouting to the rest of the camp. One went for a bow propped up against a rock while the other ran off into the tents. Noticing this I began to row furiously, hoping to get out of range as soon as I could. The soldier loosed a couple arrows in my direction, the missiles plopping into the water around me. It seemed like he couldn’t lead his shots properly, so I felt sure that I had gotten away. That was until about a dozen or so armed Thalmor darted out of the tents and set off with their remaining rowboats. “By the Gods! Are they just materializing out of thin air now?!”

I began rowing with all my might in the hopes of outrunning the Thalmor soldiers, but I was barely managing to keep ahead. With more numbers at their side, they managed to have one man to an oar each, and were slowly beginning to outstroke me, though the weight of their crews made their boats just slow enough to keep my lead. More arrows were shot in my direction, and I noticed that one soldier at the prow of his boat was readying a fireball. I started changing my course as he wound his spell up, and doing it just in time I managed to dodge the fireball as it sailed past me, singeing some of my facial hair as it went. After five minutes or so of painful rowing and dodging, I started to come up to a familiar spot in the cove. Knowing that the ship must be directly beneath me I immediately put the oars in my craft, grabbed my potions, and opened them all in a panic. I downed all three of them at once, their metallic, chalky taste almost overwhelming me as I started to gag. Almost immediately I could feel their effects taking place, as my muscles began to pulse with energy and my body felt wrapt in a strong yet gentle warmth. The mage began to ready another fireball spell, so I stood up in my craft and with a strong leap dove into the icy water just in time to avoid the spell.

Not ordinarily the best of swimmers, the Draught of Strength was propelling me through the water with great haste, quickly darting past schools of fish and chunks of ice and rock. Water began to enter my nostrils into my windpipe, though as soon as it entered my body it immediately turned into air that I could breathe. Moving in a powerful breaststroke, I started to make out a great shadowy shape near the bottom of the water, moving towards it the features slowly began to stand out. It indeed was the ship I was looking for, the Pilgrim’s Way, the ship that left for Winterhold three years ago. I quickened my strokes towards the wreck, eager to use as much of my limited time as I could to look for the relics. The Pilgrim’s Way was not a large ship, I’ve seen war galleys of the Imperial Navy docked in the harbors of the Waterfront District that were several times more massive, but it was still larger than an average fishing skiff. At first I reckoned that the relics would be kept in the cargo hold close to the keel. Swimming up to the wreck I found a hole in the hull that led to this deck and went through. The floor of the ship was littered with barnacle encrusted barrels and crates and some bones of the unfortunate crew that perished, but no hide nor hair of a locked chest or strongbox that valuables could be kept in. Then I realized that something that precious couldn’t be trusted to the cargo hold of a humble vessel, it would be kept close by whomever was the custodian of such holy artifacts. Therefore a better place to look would be in a captain’s cabin or some place similar. Thinking myself a fool, I swam through an opening on the main deck and found an entrance leading into the quarter deck. Sure enough, passing into a large chamber, I found a chest there, and unlike the rest of the ship it was left spotless, free of any kind of growths or decay. A solid padlock still held the chest shut, but utilizing the swells of increased strength I was experiencing I picked up a candlestick that was lying on the floor of the cabin and used it to break the lock. Sure enough, after a few mighty strikes it sheared away and the chest was able to be opened. With bated breath I raised the lid of the chest and though I had anticipated this day for many weeks, I was still left paralyzed at the sight of my family’s heirlooms. There the armor laid neatly, unblemished and glittering as the day Pelinal Whitestrake first appeared among mortals millennia ago. A holy aura swept over me, and I felt a serene peace that I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined. Hot tears were welling in my eyes, though they dissipated instantly in the seawater. “Father, mother, if only you two could have seen this,” I thought to myself.

Now that I found the armor I knew that I would need to gather it up in some way so that I could haul it up back to the surface and out to someplace safe. However a strong urge came over me, beckoning me to try it on, if only to see how it felt against my skin. This was not at all logical: a task as tedious as donning full plate mail was taxing enough on dry land, but to do so underwater was suicidal considering the finite duration of my water breathing potion. Still, no matter how I hard I willed myself to resist the urge, I could not help myself. I grasped the chainmail hauberk of the armor and thrust my torso and head into it. As soon as I did, I found that the mail slid into place easily, and fitted well against my body. I was astonished. I then found the greaves and sabatons of the armor, which was already joined into an articulated boot and with a flick of my wrist got the assembly open, put my feet into both, and closed them shut in an instant. I was putting it all on without effort. Next came the cuisses, the cuirass, the pauldrons, the rerebraces and gauntlets. The taper of the armor fit perfectly with the contours of my body and all the fastenings were secured without incident. What would have taken myself and an assistant half an hour to accomplish took only several minutes on my own. I through the surcoat over my armor, the red diamond glaring bright even in the cold blues of the sea and buckled my scabbard and sword about my waist, slung the Shield of Julianos on my back, and finally placed the holy Helm of Dibella on my head. A benign haze came over me as the last piece of the armor came over me, as if I was incapable of feeling fear or self-doubt. I felt the world around me flowing at a slower pace, though I can tell by the schools of fish that swam above me the world had not truly slowed down. Sighting a small island near the wreck I pushed off from the deck of the wreck and propelled myself through the water as if unencumbered by the armor, and though I wore a full helm my breaths still felt unimpeded, as did my movements by the rest of the suit. Gliding through the water I finally got a foothold on the seabed near shore and waded my way onto the island.

As I came ashore I noticed not far from me was a Thalmor soldier sitting on a boulder, facing the other way towards the cove. He was busy eating an apple, his sword placed behind him out of reach. I crept up to him slowly as he cut slices from the apple with a small knife, humming a tune carelessly as he did. As soon as I was within a sword’s stroke away from him I cleared my throat. He turned to face me before taking a bite into an apple slice, though as soon as he saw me his jaw fell slack. I leaned in slightly, my eyes drilling into his, and whispered “Boo”. The man’s eyes rolled back into his head from fright and he fainted back onto the boulder. I shook my head. “Not quite the caliber of men the Old Man crossed swords with all those years ago.” I grabbed his sword and using the last measure of strength I had left in my Draught of Strength I bent it into a U-shape and dropped it at the feet of the passed out soldier.

Scanning my surroundings I could see a sandbar running from the island I was on back to the mainland that spanned a couple hundred meters. I could see a rowboat with a handful of Thalmor soldiers in the water to the left of me fairly close by, and I was sure that they could be able to fire off some arrows or spells my way, but every moment I stayed in the cove risked the armor falling into their hands, so I had to act fast. Unslinging the Shield of Julianos on my back I strapped it onto my shield arm and waded into the sandbar at a slow, deliberate pace. Once I was fifty meters away from shore, the Thalmor in the boat spotted me and two of the soldiers rose to fire their bows. One arrow struck the water in front of me while another struck my shield, shattering like glass harmlessly. I quickened my pace as more arrows fell around me. Glancing back at the rowboat I could see that the soldiers were growing more alarmed as they continued shooting to no avail. One finally set aside his bow and readied a fireball which he hurled my direction. The spell met my shield and dissipated, a wreath of flame flowing against the shield like a wave breaking against rock. The soldiers were shouting now, hoping to get the attention of others in the area as I approached the mainland, and as the water started to get shallower I began to break into a brisk jog. As I set foot ashore two soldiers came running from around the corner of a large boulder, their swords drawn. Spotting me, they began to encircle me, each of them approaching me from opposite directions. I drew my sword and waited for them to get close. Once the one to my right was in range I lunged at him with an overhead hew. He blocked the blow with his sword, but the force of the blow staggered him. Seeing this I pivoted towards him on the ball of my right foot and slammed into him with my left shoulder against my shield. This sent him stumbling back, his guard broken as I recocked my sword and delivered a stroke from underhand. The Sword of Arkay bit into his armor like it was paper, leaving a gastly wound on his abdomen. He fell on his back hard, fatally wounded. Just then a blow struck me on the back of my head, glancing off without effect. Instinctively I made a wheeling stroke as I spun around to meet my attacker behind me. He hopped back in time to dodge the blow and attempted to riposte with a thrusting lunge. Seeing this I took a step forward with my left foot and blocked the attack with my shield while delivering a counter blow. The Thalmor soldier managed to parry the attack and we started to trade blows and counters, however his blade began to wear down slowly from repeated strikes from the Sword of Arkay until finally it snapped in two. Catching him off-guard by this I bashed my shield into his nose, sending him back reeling while giving me an opening to thrust my sword into his chest, ending the fight.

The duel cost me some time however, and I could see that there was almost a dozen Thalmor soldiers running towards me, closing the distance. Even clad in divine armor I didn’t want to risk a twelve on one fight, so looking for a path out of the cove and back to Julia I sheathed my sword and slung my shield on my back, breaking into a sprint. Arrows fell around me harmlessly, though my breathing became more labored and I knew I couldn’t keep up the pace for long. Suddenly I could see the rocky outcropping that I hid Julia behind, so summoning the last ounce of endurance I had I closed the gap rapidly and upon reaching her undid her reins. I didn’t have much time so I had to ditch my old armor and whatever supplies weren’t already packed in my saddlebags. I threw myself up into the saddle and spurred Julia into a full gallop away from the Thalmor as fast as the wind. Looking back I could see the Thalmor stopping the chase, shaking their fists my way as I escaped narrowly. Relieved, I let out a great gasp for air, winded from my sprint, and after catching my breath for a moment I thanked the Gods for finally seeing me through to my destination and delivering the Relics from the clutches of the Thalmor. Though my gratitude was genuine and my faith in the future of the family name restored, I couldn’t help but wonder what was the next objective? What would I do now that I had my heirlooms back in my possession. Such tools of immense power come with a responsibility, nay, an obligation to use them after all, just like those that wielded them before me. All I could think of were the words that Adventus Caesennius spoke to me back in Solitude, of the rumors of dragons to the south. Though my brain was telling me that Caesey was exaggerating the whole thing, that it was most likely a band of Stormcloak guerrillas in the mountains that was responsible for Helgen going incommunicado, but another part of me couldn’t help but feel curious, if not excited for the prospect. At the very least the Armor of the Crusader makes the remote chance of encountering a ravenous drake a little less suicidal. Plus I owed my friend a look at that place, after all he got my desertion charges dropped. So I decided south to Helgen was the way to go, so I found the road back to Windhelm and rode on, onto my next act so to speak, and the Gods alone know where that will take me, though when has that ever been a bad thing for me? It wasn't the first time that's happened anyways.

[Swaeft]

This is a sudden resurgence, which is great as it gives me something else to read on the weekends. Don't know how long it took you to get the feeling to write again, but congratulations on doing so, you should be proud

[Alwyn]

The encounter with the Writer of Fate is a creative way to recap. I enjoyed the mutual incomprehension, the line "“What in Oblivion’s name is Hell?” was particularly good! The way that the writer thinks through the steps involved in the new scenes works well, too.

[Turkafinwë]

Indeed. Great to see you return to this. Life does get in the way sometimes but I'm glad you found your way to some stability.