The Neveragaine, A Morrowind fanfic Options

[Helena]

Chapter 1: I Don’t Want To Go To Morrowind

It was a weird dream, I tell you that. I mean, I’ve had some strange dreams before, but this one was truly bizarre. Images flashed across my mind in a never-ending reel: fire, storms, a barren landscape, water droplets splashing into a pond... and scrolls covered in Daedric writing, which I don’t even understand. I must have eaten some really bad food the night before.

A woman’s voice was speaking. “They have taken you from the Imperial City’s prison, first by carriage, and now by boat. To the East, to Morrowind.”

“Morrowind?” I squeaked. “I don’t want to go to Morrowind!”

“Fear not,” she reassured me. “For I am watchful. You have been chosen.”

“Chosen for what?” I asked plaintively. “And does it really have to be Morrowind? I mean, how about Valenwood? I always wanted to go to Valenwood.”

I have no idea why I thought I could reason with the mysterious dream-lady, but I guess you don’t tend to think all that rationally when you’re dreaming. It didn’t matter in any case, because at that very moment I was woken up by someone roughly shaking my shoulder.

“Wake up!” It was a hoarse, throaty voice, suggestive of a bad cold. “Wake up! We’re here.”

I opened my eyes to see a male figure, naked from the waist up, staring down at me. He had grey-green skin, red eyes, and huge, sharply-pointed ears – each studded with several earrings – not to mention a vicious-looking scar running down one side of his face. A Dunmer, I thought. Well, that explained the scratchy voice.

He looked concerned. “Why are you shaking? Are you okay?”

“I… guess,” I said weakly, trying to sit up. The back of my head hurt; I must have banged it against a packing crate. “Er… bad dreams.”

He nodded. “Yes, you were dreaming. What’s your name?”

“Um… Ada. Ada Ventura.” I was still half-asleep, my head full of sandstorms and creepy disembodied voices, but I vaguely remembered my companion telling one of the guards that his name was Jiub.

“Even last night’s storm couldn’t wake you.” He leaned a little closer as I swung my legs off the makeshift bunk, rubbing my eyes. “I heard them say we’ve reached Morrowind. I’m sure they’ll let us go.”

My head jerked up. “Morrowind? I don’t want to go to Morrowind!”

“I know,” he said, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You were saying.”

It was all right for him, I thought resentfully. He was a Dark Elf; Morrowind was his home. For me, it was different.

It’s not that I have a problem with Dark Elves in general. I’d got on fine with the more cosmopolitan Dunmer I’d met in Cyrodiil, but if there was one thing they’d all made clear to me, it was that Morrowind really didn’t welcome foreign visitors. Or, as one particularly gloomy fellow summed it up: “We don’t like outlanders.” ‘Outlanders’ it transpired, meant anyone born and raised outside of Morrowind – even other Dunmer. In fact, especially other Dunmer.

Why was I being sent to Morrowind, of all places? It wasn’t Imperial policy to deport convicts to the provinces, as far as I knew. Maybe the jails were getting too full?

Footsteps creaked on the ramp leading to the middle deck, and Jiub hastily drew back. “Quiet! Here comes the guard.”

I heard the jangle of keys as the guard, a fellow Imperial, strolled towards us. He gave me a curt nod as he approached, ignoring Jiub completely. “This is where you get off. Come with me.”

I hauled myself to my feet and obediently followed, wishing my legs didn’t ache so much. Several days cooped up a creaky old carriage, followed by the hold of a prison ship, had left me with a rather severe cramp. I couldn’t wait to get out of here and stretch my legs properly for the first time in days.

They hadn’t actually treated me that badly in the prison. I’d had adequate food and exercise, and I hadn’t been beaten or ill-treated (though the third time I tried to escape, the long-suffering guard captain told me that if it ever happened again, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions). They’d even given me paper and a quill when I begged hard enough, probably hoping that it would keep me out of trouble. I’d used it to start a journal, which was pretty much the only thing that had kept me sane during my long stay in that tiny, windowless cell.

I clutched it against me as we entered the middle deck, praying that it wouldn’t be taken away. Okay, so it contained absolutely nothing of interest (I’d been in prison, for crying out loud), but it was almost the only possession I had, apart from the ratty old clothes I stood up in and a few small trinkets. Luckily, the guard didn’t even seem to notice.

Over by the next set of steps, he turned to me and fixed me with his best “you’re a disgrace to my people” glare. I scowled back at him. “I’m innocent, you know.”

“They all are,” he said with a sigh. “Now, get yourself up on deck, and let’s keep this as civil as possible.”

I couldn’t wait to get up on deck. I practically ran at the trapdoor, shoved it open, and drank in huge gulps of fresh, salty air, blinking in the early morning sunlight. Hauling myself up on to the deck, I squeezed my eyes shut and prepared to look on my new home of Morrowind for the first time ever.

I drew another deep, heady breath, and opened my eyes. And stared.

From the descriptions my Dunmer friends had given me, I had somehow envisioned Morrowind as an endless wasteland of rocks, lava valleys, and ash storms. But the landscape that stretched out before me was lush and green, with gentle waves lapping against a grassy shore. A village of quaint little huts surrounded the docks, and off in the distance I could see some kind of tower – a lighthouse, probably – surrounded by tall plane trees. It was, to my amazement, quite beautiful.

The soldier standing beside me, a Redguard, grinned at the look on my face. “This is where they want you. Head down to the dock and they'll show you to the Census Office.” He sounded a lot more friendly than the other guards on the ship.

I stumbled down the gangplank to be met by another guard, this one in full Imperial uniform. “You finally arrived!” he exclaimed, as if he’d been waiting all his life for this moment. “But our records don’t show from where.”

I gathered my thoughts. “Er, Ada Ventura, of Imperial City. Temple District,” I added, in case it was important. Though in actual fact, I’d barely set foot in the Temple District in several years.

“Great! I’m sure you’ll fit right in.” Wow, this guy was almost scarily friendly. “Follow me up to the office, and they’ll finish your release.”

I entered the census office, where I was met by an elderly-looking man who I presumed to be a clerk. “Ah yes,” he said briskly, “we’ve been expecting you. You’ll have to be officially recorded before you’re released. Now, just a few formalities…” He took up a sheaf of papers from his desk. “Your class, please?”

“My… class?” I repeated, slightly confused. “You mean my trade? Well… I don’t really have one as such.” The truth was, I’d never really studied for a trade. I’d just travelled around, learning whatever I thought was useful.

He sighed, and shoved the papers into my hands. “Here. Fill in the forms yourself.”

I sat down at the desk and began to note down everything I could think of that I was any good at. It was a bit of a mixed bag; while most of my skills were combat-related (blades, light and heavy armour, armour repair), I’d also learned to pick locks and disarm traps (useful in a tight spot) and to bargain for a good deal with merchants. Magic was a different matter; to be honest, I’d never really had much of a talent for it. The only discipline I’d studied in any detail was Restoration, and even then, all I could remember after five years was a single healing spell which I couldn’t even cast properly half the time.

“Here,” I said at last, handing him back the forms. I couldn’t really think of a good name for my lack-of-profession, so in the end I’d just put ‘mercenary’, which was pretty much accurate.

“Very good. Now, the letter which preceded you mentioned that you were born under a certain sign… which would be?”

Was this really necessary? I suppressed a sigh. “The Lady. Twenty-first of Heartfire, 3E 404.”

“Interesting,” he murmured. “Now, just make sure this information is correct before I stamp the papers…”

I checked through the information, noting the date on the papers as I did so: 16th of Last Seed. I’d been in prison for over a year.

Once I’d finished, the clerk stamped the papers with the Imperial seal, and it seemed that I was good to go. “Show your papers to the Captain when you go to get your release fee,” he said with a smile.

I walked out into a small hallway, which contained a bookcase and a table with a half-finished meal on it. My stomach rumbled at the sight of the bread and meat – they’d only given us one meal a day on board the ship – but I didn’t want to take anything in case someone caught me. The last thing I needed was to be thrown back in jail for stealing on my first day of freedom.

The door at the end of the hallway led me out through an enclosed courtyard and into another office, where a man in a gleaming suit of Imperial Templar armour was sitting at a desk. This, I presumed, was the Captain I was supposed to report to.

“Er… Captain?” I said, holding out the papers. “I’m Ada, the prisoner who was just released. I was told to give these to you.”

“Ah, yes. Word of your arrival only reached me yesterday.” He looked slightly harassed. “Still, no matter. I’m Sellus Gravius, and I’m here to welcome you to Morrowind.”

“Pleased to meet you.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

“I don’t know why you’re here,” he continued. “Or why you were released from prison and shipped here. But your authorization comes directly from Emperor Uriel Septim VII himself.”

I stared at him, wondering if I’d heard correctly. “What?”

“From the Emperor,” he repeated.

“The… Emperor?”

“Yes, the Emperor. Uriel Septim is still Emperor.” He gave me a rather strange look. “You do remember that, don’t you?”

Well, naturally I did. Uriel Septim had been Emperor several decades longer than I’d been alive. “Of course I do,” I snapped, then realised that it probably wasn’t a good idea to piss off the guy in charge of my release. “But… why?”

“Damned if I know,” he said bluntly. “But that's the way the Empire works. Silence. Secrecy. Let not the left hand know what the right hand is doing.”

I nodded slowly, still unable to take in what I’d just heard. Why the heck would the Emperor be personally ordering my release? He didn’t concern himself with people like me. Maybe there’d been a mistake, and the guy who was really supposed to be released had been dragged off to a salt mine somewhere.

“Anyway,” Gravius continued, “this package came with news of your arrival.” He handed me a small package. “You are to take it to Caius Cosades, in the town of Balmora. I also have a letter for you, and a disbursal to your name.”

He handed over an official-looking document and an oilskin pouch containing a handful of gold coins – just under a hundred septims’ worth, in my estimation. Suddenly I felt a lot more kindly disposed towards him. I was still thoroughly confused, but I certainly wasn’t about to turn down some desperately-needed cash.

“Right,” I said, pulling myself together. “Just let me write this down… where can I find this Cosades guy, by the way?”

“Take the silt strider to Balmora, then go to the South Wall Cornerclub and ask for Caius Cosades. They'll know where to find him.” He fixed me with a stern glare. “Serve him as you would serve the Emperor himself.”

I nodded and scribbled down the instructions in my journal, wondering what exactly a ‘silt strider’ could be. “Okay, thanks. I’ll do my best.”

“Goodbye,” he said with a faint smile, “and good luck.”

I hesitated for a moment before the door leading out into the village, then pushed it open. Bright sunlight streamed into the room, and I felt a sudden giddy rush of joy. Freedom! OK, so I was alone, friendless and nearly penniless in a foreign country with nowhere to stay and no possessions, but still… freedom! Freeeeeedom!

I looked around me, still struggling to adjust to the bright light after all those months in a dingy cell. Rather to my surprise, the first person I saw was not a Dunmer but a Bosmer – a Wood Elf, as we call them back West. Wood Elves aren’t my favourite people in general, but right now I was so happy to be free that I could almost have hugged him. I settled for a nod and a cheery “Good morning!”

“Greetings, Cyrodiil!” he said, in that high, squeaky voice that grates on your nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. “Welcome to Seyda Neen! Are you the one the boat dropped off? Hope the Imperials treated you okay. I swear they took my ring.”

“Your ring?” I said, confused.

“I swear one of the Guards has it. I had it last week before their weekly ‘Let's shake down Fargoth’ ritual.” Fargoth, I gathered, was his name. “An engraved healing ring, family heirloom of mine. You haven't seen it, have you?”

“No,” I said. His face fell. “But I could look for it if you like,” I added, yielding to a generous impulse.

“Oh, thank you!” he exclaimed, brightening up. “Of course, you’re an Imperial, they won’t suspect you.”

I wasn’t quite so sure about that, but I turned around and headed back into the office I’d just left. The Captain, still writing at his desk, seemed more than a little surprised to see me back so soon. “Can I help you, citizen?” he asked, with a slight frown.

“Hi there,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I seem to have dropped my, er… comb… somewhere in here. I don’t suppose you’ve seen it, have you?”

He gave me another of those slightly bemused looks. “No, I haven’t seen it.”

“Okay, never mind. I’ll just have a quick look for it, then,” I said, and slipped through the other door before he could ask any more questions.

I returned to the census office where the clerk had taken my details, and had a quick hunt around for Fargoth’s ring. No one interrupted me to ask what I was doing, but it made no difference, as the ring was nowhere to be found. I even checked the cellar downstairs, but all I found were a few barrels of provisions, none of which looked particularly appetising.

Heading back into the courtyard, I was on the point of giving up when I noticed an ordinary-looking barrel standing close to the door. On impulse, I lifted the lid and peered at the contents. It appeared to function as a refuse bin, and was full of rotten food and broken crockery, but I could see something glinting near the bottom.

I reached into the barrel and pulled out… an engraved ring, enchanted with a minor healing spell. Success!

Damn, and it was a nice ring, as well. I could have done with a ring like that, especially in my current situation. I have to admit, I was sorely tempted to keep it for myself and tell Fargoth that I couldn’t find it.

I went back into the office, where the Captain was waiting. “Found it!” I said cheerfully, holding up my comb (which of course I’d had all along). “I’d just dropped it out there in the yard. Anyway, best be going.”

Fargoth greeted me excitedly as I left the office. “Have you looked for my ring, outlander? Did you find it?”

I looked into his eager little face, and I just couldn’t bring myself to lie to him. Besides, whatever else I might have done, I wasn’t a thief. “Yes, I found it,” I said, suppressing a sigh. “Here it is.”

“Oh, thank you!” he gasped, and before I could react he had flung his arms around me. “Thank you, thank you! You are now my favourite friend!”

“Er, no problem,” I said, a little overwhelmed by this display of gratitude. “I’m Ada, by the way.”

“Ada,” he repeated. “I’ll remember that. I’ll be sure to tell everyone, especially my friend Arrille who runs the tradehouse here. Go see him, he’ll be happy to see you now!”

He scampered off, leaving me feeling slightly stunned. Oh well, if he put in a good word for me with the local trader, that couldn’t hurt.

Right, I thought, time to get some food. And before I went anywhere at all, I needed a weapon and some proper armour. Caius Cosades and his packages could wait.

I took the opportunity to observe Seyda Neen more closely as I walked up to the tradehouse. It was a tiny settlement, more a hamlet than a village, set in what appeared to be the middle of a swamp. Apart from the census office, the tradehouse, and another warehouse of some kind, there didn’t appear to be any buildings of interest.

The population was a mixed bag, which I suppose is unsurprising for a port settlement. Besides the Dunmer and Imperial guards, there were several other humans around the place, and I even spotted a High Elf woman emerging from one of the houses. Several Dark Elf citizens nodded to me as I passed, showing none of the hostility that the Morrowind Dunmer were supposedly famous for. “Good day to you, Cyrodiil.”

I was a little surprised to be so quickly recognised as Imperial, as I don’t really look like a typical Cyrodiil. Women of my race tend towards the short, dark and curvy, whereas I’m above average height, with a build that can only be described as ‘wiry’. My skin is pale, with a tendency to burn when I stay out in the sun too long, and my hair a colour that I like to call ‘bright copper’ and everyone else describes as ‘ginger’. Fellow Imperials often ask if I have Nord blood in me – but I guess that to the Dunmer, our distinguishing features must be as obvious as their ash-grey skin and red eyes are to us.

The trader Arrille, another High Elf, looked me over critically as I entered the inn. I felt the back of my neck itch slightly. I’ve always had a slight inferiority complex around Altmer – deliberately or not, they somehow invariably manage to give the impression that they’re looking down on you. (It doesn’t help that they literally are, as most of them stand six inches taller than your average human.)

“Ah, you must be Fargoth’s friend!” he exclaimed, as I approached. “Welcome to Arrille’s Tradehouse. I’m Arille, publican and proprietor. Would you like to hear about our most popular potions, or our most popular scrolls?”

I leaned over the counter. “Do you have any… weapons?”

I bought an iron longsword and shield at a cost of around seventy drakes (the local term for what we call ‘septims’, apparently), regretfully passing over a rather snazzy green robe. Yes, I admit it: I love fine clothes. I wear armour most of the time, but if it didn’t get in the way of fighting, I’d quite happily run around dressed in silks and satins as the mages do. (No need for practical clothing when you can just blast enemies with a fireball spell from twenty feet.)

After that, I bought a map and a cheap meal and headed upstairs to the bar to eat. By this time I was so hungry that I could quite happily have wolfed down three breakfasts at once, but unfortunately I was already getting low on money. I’d have to make some more somehow or I’d end up being stuck in this place for ever.

The dark-skinned woman behind the bar gave me a friendly smile, which I returned. I rather like Redguards; they’re skilled fighters and they know how to have a good time, with none of the snottiness of elves or Bretons. (So do Nords, come to that – just make sure you never try to outdrink one.)

“Hello there,” she said, as I sat down at the bar with my plate of food. “You’re new here, aren’t you? I’m Elone the Scout. If you need any directions, just ask.”

“Thanks.” We shook hands. “I’m Ada Ventura, of Imperial City. Maybe you could tell me how to get to Balmora?”

She wrote down some directions and marked various places of interest on my map, while I settled down to my meal of bread and crab meat. Seyda Neen was on the south-west coast of Vvardenfell, the large island that made up the bulk of northern Morrowind. Balmora was a medium-sized town to the north, though apparently quite a long walk away. “You’d be better off taking the silt strider,” she advised me.

“This may sound like a stupid question,” I said, “but… what exactly is a silt strider?”

She grinned. “Silt striders are giant insects. A compartment for passengers and cargo is hollowed from the shell, and the driver directs it by manipulating exposed organs and tissues. Pretty clever, don’t you think?”

Wow. Back in Cyrodiil, we just use horses.

“So what brings you to Morrowind, Ada?” she asked eventually. “We don’t see a lot of Imperial tourists here.”

“I’m not a tourist.”

“Business, then?” She looked surprised; it was clear from my outfit that I wasn’t wealthy.

“No.” I lowered my voice. “As a matter of fact, I… was just released from prison.”

Elone’s eyes widened. “Really? What did – ” She checked herself quickly. “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”

“No, that’s OK.” I felt a sudden urge to confide in someone, anyone. “You see, it was like this…”

*****

If I had only listened to my parents, none of this would ever have happened. Not my real parents, of course – I never knew my birth family, as they were kind enough to dump me in a basket outside the Temple of the One on the day I was born. To this day I have no idea who they were, or why they abandoned me. Supposedly I’d been wrapped in good linen, which suggested that they were well-off, but other than that there was nothing I could use to identify them.

I was taken in by a kindly local couple, Marcus and Sybilla Ventura, who raised me as their own child for eighteen years (though I called them ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’). I won’t pretend they weren’t good to me; they brought me up well, bought me fine clothes and jewellery to wear, and pretended for as long as they could that I was going to turn out a beauty. The only thing they asked for in return was a dutiful daughter – which I unfortunately wasn’t.

It wasn’t that they were blinkered enough to deny me a trade, but their idea of a suitable trade didn’t exactly mesh with mine. They’d have preferred me to marry some rich merchant and settle down to the normal Imperial pursuits, namely: making money, making more money, hoarding it all up into a nice little pile, and then using it to make even more money. But I had other ideas: from the day I first visited the Arena, at the tender age of eight, I had known that I wanted to be a fighter. It was to lead to many, many bitter arguments between me and my family.

“I wouldn’t have minded the Legion,” Aunt Sybilla had sniffled, after one of these fights. “At least that’s a respectable profession. But what kind of trade is ‘wandering adventurer’? Messing around in horrible dirty caves and brawling in low taverns.”

I’d laughed at the time, but it was one of those ‘low taverns’ that had done for me in the end. I’d only stopped there for the night on my way to a job in Cheydinhal, near the border with Morrowind. The mead there was cheap, but powerful – the kind that doubles your strength at the expense of shutting down half your brain cells – and, fatally, I’d ended up drinking a few glasses too many.

It was all his fault, really. He shouldn’t have tried to cop a feel, and he certainly shouldn’t have called me that name when I shoved him away and told him to get lost. Besides, he was twice my size; how could I have guessed that my first punch would knock him out, or that he’d smash his head against the stone fireplace as he fell? I really, really didn’t mean to kill him.

There were plenty of witnesses to testify that it had been an accident – I’d even drunkenly tried to use a healing potion on him as he died – and I might have got away with a lighter sentence, had it not been for the guy’s family. He turned out to be the son of a noble family, one of those spoiled brats who like to show how ‘hard’ they are by visiting rough taverns and slumming it with the locals. His parents were hell-bent on charging me with murder, and they’d demanded blood money of five thousand septims – far more than I could possibly afford. I was far too ashamed to ask my adoptive family for help, and in any case, I’d hardly spoken to them since I left home nearly four years earlier.

So I went to prison, just under a month before my twenty-second birthday, with no clear prospect of release and my career (such as it was) in ruins. I’d been there ever since, rotting in a cell, only half a mile away from the fashionable district where I’d grown up.

*****

I didn’t give Elone the whole sob story, of course. I just told her that I’d been imprisoned for murder after accidentally killing a guy in a fight. She seemed sympathetic.

“Well, time to make a fresh start, huh?” she suggested. “Wipe the slate clean. Make a new life for yourself here in Morrowind.”

“Hmph.” I wasn’t too sure about that.

I finished off my meal, while Elone filled me in on the latest gossip. Apparently the local tax collector, Processus Vitellius, had gone missing. “Can’t say I’m surprised,” she said with a wink. “He wasn’t very popular around here.”

I wondered if there had ever been a tax collector in the entire history of the world who was actually popular with the locals. If so, he had to be some kind of saint.

As I left the bar, I was accosted by an off-duty Legionnaire at the top of the stairs. He was a typical Nord, big and beefy, with braided flaxen hair and a heavy beard. “Ho there, outlander!” His voice was slightly slurred, and I could smell alcohol on his breath – not a good sign at this time in the morning.

“Yes?” I said warily, keeping my hand on the hilt of my sword.

He leaned towards me. “You look like you could use a friend. Perhaps I could be your friend… if you help me recover some gold.”

“Go on.”

“You see, I’ve had a run of bad luck,” he confessed. “Lost a bit of money playing Nine-holes. Normally, I’d be fine, what with the money the locals pay us for… protection, but – ”

“Protection,” I said drily. “Right.”

“But I know some of them are holding out on me,” he went on. “That little fetcher Fargoth, for example. He’s come up light the last few times I’ve shaken him down. And I’ve been through his whole house, so I know it’s not there.”

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Fargoth. The Bosmer are basically the racial equivalent of those scrawny kids who keep getting beaten up for their lunch money.

“So what do you want me to do?” I asked.

He motioned for me to come closer, and spoke in a low voice. “Find out where he’s stashing his gold. If you do it for me, I’ll give you a share of the wealth. You up for it?”

I was about to tell him to go and do his own dirty work, when I suddenly remembered how very short of money I was. I had only around fifteen septims left, which would barely be enough to pay for the silt strider, let alone any more meals (and food was pretty high on my list of priorities right now). Maybe this was not the best time to be a stickler for high moral principles.

“Maybe,” I mumbled. “So how would we share this wealth, exactly?”

He sighed. “I’ll give you a third of the gold, and you can keep any other loot you find. Deal?”

“All right,” I said reluctantly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just wait until nightfall and then watch where he goes. The top of the lighthouse is a good vantage point – gives you a nice view of all Seyda Neen. Figure out where he goes and then bring the loot back to me, okay?”

It wasn’t really stealing, I told myself as I left the tradehouse. This was a Legion soldier, after all. No doubt he was collecting that money for entirely legitimate purposes of… protection. Absolutely.

Anyway, once I had some more money, it would be time to start figuring out a way to get home. Okay, so Morrowind might not be quite as bad as I had expected – but whatever Elone said, there was no way I would consider actually living here for any length of time. I was a Cyrodiil born and bred, and I belonged there.

I knew that my Uncle Marcus, a silk merchant, traded goods through the East Empire Company in the port of Ebonheart. Maybe I could find a ship there that would take me to the mainland? It would be expensive, no doubt, but perhaps I could find someone who knew my uncle – or perhaps even stow away on board a ship. There had to be some way out of this place.

I definitely did not plan to stay in Morrowind.

[Helena]

Chapter 6: Tomb Raider

Since I wasn’t exactly desperate to get on with either of my current missions, I decided to go to the Fighter’s Guild and see what Eydis had to offer. I’d done enough silly trainee missions for her now; hopefully she’d have something more worthy of my talents (such as they were).

I wasn’t disappointed. “We have a contract to kill four Telvanni agents,” she told me. “They’re responsible for trouble up at the Caldera mine.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“The Caldera Mining Company says they've learned a group of Telvanni agents are spying on the mine works. There have been a number of ebony thefts, missing guards, escaped slaves, and these Telvanni agents are responsible.”

I looked up sharply. “Escaped slaves?”

“That’s right.” She took my map so that she could mark the location of the Caldera mine. “The four agents are hiding in a cave in the hills north of the mine. When they’re dead, report back to me.”

So, the Caldera Mines used slave labour? I felt my heart sink. I’d been hoping that at least the Fighters’ Guild jobs would be something I could do with a clean conscience. But I knew well enough that I couldn’t pick and choose the missions I took, as long as they were legitimate contracts.

“So, Telvanni,” I said with a sigh. “Mages then, I take it?” Maybe I’d have to grit my teeth and buy up those magickguard spells after all.

To my surprise, Eydis hesitated slightly before replying. “No… not mages. They’re Thieves’ Guild.”

I frowned, slightly bemused. I didn’t know much about the Telvanni yet, but from what I had heard about them, it really didn’t sound like they got on with any of the Imperial guilds. “Why would the Telvanni be hiring Thieves Guild people as agents?”

“Who knows? But this isn’t a Thieves Guild job.” I would have asked more questions, but something in the look on her face told me that they wouldn’t be at all welcome. “Here are the directions and the names of the four agents. Now, get to it.”

I said nothing more, but I couldn’t help thinking about Sottilde and what she had told me. What was going on here – some kind of Guild war? Well, whatever it was, it was probably better for me not to know about it. I’d no love for the Thieves’ Guild anyway; I just wished this contract didn’t involve working for slavers, even indirectly.

Having accepted the mission, I was faced with two choices for the next day’s activities: head north to Caldera and hence to Ald’ruhn, or south towards the village of Pelagiad to fetch Sharn’s skull from the Andrano tomb. Since I had a nagging feeling that I really ought to start my pilgrimage for the Temple, and the route to the tomb ran reasonably close to one of the pilgrimage sites, I chose the latter.

The road to Pelagiad led south from Fort Moonmoth through a rocky ravine, far too similar to the Ald’ruhn landscape for my liking. I had intended to turn off at a fork in the path and take the turning for the Fields of Kummu, where there was a holy shrine to Vivec. Unfortunately, with my sketchy knowledge of the route and my difficulty in interpreting the Daedric writing on the signposts, I ended up taking the wrong turning – heading south-west instead of south-east. I didn’t fully realise my mistake until, half an hour later, I found myself at a dead end.

By the time I managed to haul myself back out of the ravine and find a signpost, I realised that I was now several miles south of the pilgrimage site. Since turning back would waste time, I’d have to carry on south to the Andrano tomb and visit the shrine on the way back up.

On the plus side, the countryside here was some of the most beautiful I’d ever seen. It reminded me of the Cyrodiil heartlands: leafy and grassy, with patches of wildflowers growing by moss-covered rocks. The only difference was the abundance of huge and colourful mushrooms, as big as trees, dotted around the landscape. I’d entered the region of Vvardenfell known as the Ascadian Isles.

Just as I was about to carry on south, I saw a well-dressed and very pretty Breton woman standing a little way away. At least, she looked like a Breton – Bretons are technically half-elves, but they’re so similar to Imperials in appearance that it’s often hard to tell them apart. She looked a little lost, and her clothes clearly weren’t intended as travelling gear, so I wondered if she was in difficulties of some kind.

“Can I help you?” I called to her, disregarding the fact that I was pretty much lost myself.

She ran over to me, looking a little flustered. “Begging your pardon, but have you seen a bandit nearby? I must find him!”

“A bandit? Have you been attacked?”

She nodded. “Yes. I was just walking along here, minding my own business, when suddenly a bandit jumped at me from behind. He was a Dark Elf.” To my surprise, a faint blush spread over her face. “A strong, dashing Dark Elf. He didn’t harm me in any way, although he did take my jewels.”

“Okay. Well, I can take you as far as Pelagiad,” I said. “If you talk to the guards at the fort there, I’m sure – ”

“What’s that? Oh, never mind the jewels!” She waved a hand dismissively. “I want to find the bandit again!”

“What?”

“He was quite gentle,” she said dreamily. “And he talked to me for what seemed like forever. He was charming, and funny, and – ”

Oh, sweet Mara. “Are you telling me you’ve fallen in love with him?!”

“I simply must see him again!” she exclaimed, her eyes shining. “Perhaps you can find him for me? Please, I cannot live without knowing if he could ever love me.”

I gaped at her. “Are you mad? No, I will not!”

“Have you no heart?” she said passionately. “No soul? Can you not see that this must be true love?”

“True love? With a highway robber you’ve known for all of three minutes?”

“Not just three minutes!” she protested. “Much longer than that. At least… ten. Anyway, I’m certain he’ll want to find me again.”

I nodded sagely. “Oh, yes. I’m sure the bandit who swiped your jewels to fund his next skooma hit is just dying to see you again.”

She burst into tears. I looked at her in exasperation, wondering why I always seemed to meet the crazy ones. Bretons! They may be wonderful magicians, but they haven’t a scrap of common sense between them.

“Look, what’s your name?” I asked. “If I happen to come across this bandit – if – I guess I could tell him that you’d like to see him again. But I’m not making any promises.”

“Oh, thank you so!” she cried, her tears forgotten. “My name is Maurrie Aurmine, and his is Nelos. Nelos Onmar... a name that will stay on my lips for eternity.” I was struggling not to laugh. “Please, if you find him, give him this glove for me as a token of my love.”

She pulled off one of her expensive-looking gloves and handed it to me. I forced myself to smile politely and then took my leave of her, shaking my head.

When I reached Pelagiad, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was built in the Imperial village style. Rows of half-timbered houses with thatched roofs lent it a quaintly familiar air. I wasn’t really expecting to find the dashing Nelos here – no doubt he was miles away by now – but I decided to ask around in the local tavern and see if anyone recognised the name.

I pushed open the door of the ‘Halfway Tavern’. “Excuse me,” I said loudly, glancing around the taproom. “I’m looking for a strong, dashing Dark Elf.”

This met with appreciative laughter from the other patrons. There weren’t many of them at this time of day – apart from the female bartender, there was only one other Dunmer in the place. The others were both outlander women: a Wood Elf and a Khajiit.

The bartender raised her eyebrows, clearly amused. “Well, you could try Yakum,” she said, gesturing towards the oddly-dressed man sitting in a corner. “But he’s an Ashlander; he doesn’t speak Tamrielic very well.”

I shook my head. “The one I have business with is named Nelos Onmar.”

“Ah, Nelos? Yes, he comes in here now and again. Ahnassi!” she called to the Khajiit woman. “Have you seen Nelos here lately?”

The Khajiit nodded. “Yes, Ahnassi has seen him.” (For some reason, Khajiit almost always refer to themselves in the third person.) “He will return… later today, perhaps.”

Well, I certainly wasn’t going to sit around all day waiting for the guy. I opted to leave for the tomb now and come back a little later.

The Andrano ancestral tomb was a little way south of the village, just off the main road. The glyphs on the door made it clear that this was a burial place, though I couldn’t read them. I just hoped I’d come to the right place.

Before entering the tomb, I swapped my usual steel longsword for the enchanted blade which Sharn had given me. It was a short blade, and since I’d trained mainly with longswords, the difference in weight and reach would make it harder to fight with. But enchanted blades were expensive, and this was the best I had – unless I wanted to spend some of my hard-earned Hlaalu cash, which I was saving up to bribe my way back to Cyrodiil.

Inside the tomb, I crept down a narrow, sloping passageway towards a small chamber containing a shrine – and then stopped short when I saw the body of a male warrior lying on the floor below me. He had no obvious injuries, but that just made me even warier, and I listened carefully for the telltale sounds of the undead as I crept down the passageway.

That caution almost certainly saved my life. The moment I drew close enough to see the whole of the chamber, a pale, semi-transparent form lunged at me from the far corner, its skull-like face leering evilly. I leapt back just in time to avoid being hit, and slashed at it ineffectually with my sword. Nothing happened; the blade seemed to pass straight through the ghostly figure without doing any damage.

Deciding that my life was more important than my dignity, I turned and fled. The ghost followed me all the way to the door, shrieking angrily, and I only just managed to avoid the magical curse it flung at me.

Outside in the bright daylight, I paused to recover my breath and my nerve before attempting to tackle the ghost again. Sharn’s sword, nice as it was, clearly wasn’t going to work against a spirit this powerful. What I needed was a spell scroll.

Although I’d never learned to speak or read more than a few words of Daedric, I had painstakingly taught myself to recognise the letter clusters and pronounce them phonetically. Spell scrolls took the difficulty out of spellcasting by letting you simply read the words off an enchanted scroll, without having to remember the spell or waste magicka. I rooted around in my pack for something that would work against a ghost, and finally dug out a fire spell scroll called ‘Taldam’s Scorcher’ (see what I mean about the silly names)? It was a fairly cheap scroll, but definitely more effective than my own weak fireball spell.

Clutching the scroll in my hand, I re-entered the tomb, where the angry ghost immediately lunged at me. I gabbled off the spell and the spirit vanished in a burst of fire magicka, leaving only a small heap of ectoplasm on the ground. It would be back, of course – you can’t kill something that’s already dead – but not in the short time I needed to recover Andrano’s skull from its crypt.

I was on the watch for more ghosts as I crept through the tomb, but the only other undead I encountered were a few skeleton walkers, which were easy enough to deal with. What really scared me was the tomb itself. The grisly skull decorations and reeking ash-pits strewn with bones were bad enough, but the creepiest thing by far was the sounds. I could hear them everywhere, distant footsteps and heavy breathing, and faint, echoing whispers that seemed to come from the walls themselves.

The deeper I went into the tomb, the louder the whispers became, until I could hear them so clearly that I could actually make out the words (though not understand them). Honestly, I couldn’t wait to get out of this place – I’d go crazy if I spent much more time in here.

Sharn had described the skull’s ritual markings in some detail, so I was able to recognise it when I finally came across it in one of the lower chambers. There was some kind of enchanted dagger lying next to it, but I left that well alone. I was half expecting to be attacked by another angry ghost the moment I picked up the skull, and though nothing actually happened, it didn’t stop me from feeling deeply uncomfortable. Apart from anything else, the Gods tended to take a very dim view of this kind of thing – and I didn’t want to be refused healing the next time I prayed at a Cult shrine.

“Uh… Arkay?” I mumbled (I never really know what to say when I’m praying). “I’m really sorry about this, okay? But it’s all in a good cause. Sort of.” Since I was a member of the Temple now, I supposed I ought to pray to Almsivi as well – but I didn’t know which of them handled this sort of thing.

I left the tomb as quickly as possible and made my way back to Pelagiad. Nelos still hadn’t returned when I got back to the tavern, so I sat down to wait. In the meantime, I bought a meal and struck up a conversation with the Ashlander man whom the bartender had named as Yakum. He smiled a little shyly when I introduced myself.

“Hello, Ada. Yakum greet you. Bless and be blessed. Speak Old Elf, yes, so Yakum learn.”

“So you’re an Ashlander?” I asked, unsure what else to say. Hasphat had mentioned that the Ashlanders were the natives of Vvardenfell, but I’d never met any before.

He nodded. “You know Ashlanders, yes, a little? We are the People of the Wastes. We hunt and herd guar. No houses, just yurts.”

“So why did you leave?” I asked.

Yakum shrugged. “I was a herder, but now I want to become rich, like a great trader. I will live in a town, fight, find treasure, get rich, learn to trade. The soul sickness and blight storms are very bad now in the Ashlands, so I came to Pelagiad.”

“‘Soul sickness’?”

“There’s bad magic in the dust from Red Mountain.” His speech was becoming more fluent as he relaxed a little. “The Sharmat Dagoth Ur sends bad dreams in the dust. When I lived in the Ashlands, I got no sleep, had bad dreams, was all the time tired. Now that I’m here in Pelagiad, I sleep fine.”

“Hmm.” I briefly remembered the dream I’d had the other day, after my trip to Arkngthand. But I hadn’t been anywhere near a Blight storm at the time, so that couldn’t be it.

A thought struck me. “Yakum, do you know anything about the Nerevarine?”

“Nerevarine?” His brow furrowed. “Yes, Yakum has heard of this. You must speak with Urshilaku.”

“Er… Urshilaku?”

“You have map?” I laid it out on the table in front of him. “Urshilaku are here,” he said, pointing at a seemingly random spot in the north of the island. “Or here, or here. They are moving, often.”

I guessed that ‘Urshilaku’ was some kind of Ashlander tribe, but the idea of trekking to the far north just to ask them about the Nerevarine was not an appealing one. Still, at least it was a lead of sorts.

At that moment, the door swung open and a young, swarthy-looking Dunmer man entered the tavern. The bartender looked up from the tankards she was polishing, and a grin spread over her face. “Oh, Nelos!” she called. “There’s a lady here to see you.”

“A lady?” I heard a note of excitement in his voice, but when he turned and saw me, his face fell. “Oh.”

“Mr. Onmar? Ada Ventura,” I said loudly, ignoring his rudeness. “I’m here on behalf of Maurrie Aurmine. The lady you robbed on the northern highway a few hours ago.”

His face lit up again. “Maurrie? Yes, she was a lovely young woman. But… what would she want with a rogue like me?”

“Search me,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “But she asked me to give you this glove as a token.” I pulled out the now slightly crumpled glove and handed it to him.

Nelos stared at the glove, turning it over in his hands. “How… odd,” he murmured. “She is beautiful, though, and seemed sweet. For the first time in my life, I actually felt a little remorse for robbing someone.”

“How charming,” I said drily. “Maybe you could demonstrate that remorse by returning her jewels to her?”

His dusky skin flushed slightly. “Actually, I’m afraid I’ve already sold them.”

“Ah, such chivalry,” I said. “It must be true love.”

Nelos continued to gaze at Maurrie’s token, oblivious to the sarcasm in my voice. “I must see her again,” he said suddenly. “Do you have a quill?”

I lent him my own quill and some paper and ink, wondering where on Nirn this was going. He scrawled out a message to Maurrie and then handed it back to me. “Here, take this. Tell her you have a note from Nelos. I won’t forget this, friend.”

I left the tavern, still finding it hard to believe I had ended up as a go-between for a bandit and his Breton sweetheart. He wasn’t even that good-looking, I thought – at least not to my eyes. Mind you, I’d never really gone for the whole ‘ash-grey skin and red demon-eyes’ look myself.

Although I don’t make a habit of reading other people’s private correspondence, I did sneak a look at Nelos’ note once I was safely out of sight. I was still highly skeptical about Nelos’ sudden ‘change of heart’, and I didn’t want to be responsible for putting Maurrie in danger, silly little airhead that she was. But all it contained was a few sentences praising her beauty, begging her forgiveness for his ‘past transgressions’, and saying he would come to her ‘as soon as I can’.

I found Maurrie exactly where I’d left her, sitting on a rock with her hands clasped around her knees. She must have been there hours, yet she didn’t seem troubled by hunger, thirst or heat. I explained what had happened and handed over Nelos’ note.

She snatched it out of my hands, read it quickly, and let out a cry of joy. “Wonderful! Thank you so! Oh, I knew that he cared.”

“Well, if you go to meet him, just be careful,” I warned her, vainly hoping to instil a note of caution in that pretty little head of hers. “Don’t let him… take advantage of you.”

But she wasn’t listening. “You’re clearly a wonderful person,” she said, enfolding me in a spontaneous hug. “You should visit my friend Barnand Erelie in Tel Branora. He's a wonderful person too, and I think the two of you would get along famously.”

I gazed after her in disbelief as she all but skipped off down the road towards Pelagiad. Was she trying to set me up with a friend of hers? Still, I supposed it couldn’t do any harm, if I ever happened to be passing that way. I just hoped I wouldn’t come back to hear that her body had been found in a ditch somewhere.

On my way up towards the Fields of Kummu, I came across yet another young woman standing in the road. She looked far less wealthy than Maurrie, but just as lost. As I approached she called out, “Hello! Please, can you help me?”

I stopped short. “Please don’t say you’re looking for Nelos Onmar as well!”

“Who?” she asked, with a puzzled frown. “No, I've lost my way, that’s all. I cannot find the holy place for which I am searching.”

I really wasn’t in the mood for escort missions right now. “Well, I don’t really know this area myself,” I explained. “I was just on my way to the Fields of Kummu – ”

“That’s it!” she cried in delight. “Perhaps you can help me find it? I can pay you for your time.”

Since it wouldn’t cost me anything, I agreed to let her come along with me. As we went, the young woman – a Dunmer named Nevrasa Dralor – explained that she too was a pilgrim, and told me the story behind the Kummu shrine.

“It was there that Lord Vivec met a poor farmer whose only guar had died,” she said. “This farmer could not harvest his muckspunge without his guar, and could not provide muck for himself or his village. So, the Lord Vivec removed his fine clothes, laid them aside, and toiled in the farmer’s fields, acting as a beast of burden until the entire crop was harvested. It is at the Fields of Kummu we go to pray for the same humility Lord Vivec showed on that day.”

“What a nice story,” I said politely. “Er, what is ‘muck’?”

She looked surprised. “Surely you have brought a portion with you to donate to the shrine?”

With a sinking heart, I pulled out my copy of The Pilgrim’s Path and turned to the page on the Fields of Kummu shrine. There, at the bottom of the page, it clearly stated that “It is customary to leave a portion of muck at the shrine to represent Vivec’s humility.”

“Damn.” I turned to Nevrasa. “I don’t suppose you might have some spare…?”

She shook her head. “No, I have only one portion. But there may be mucksponges near the shrine.”

Well, I certainly hoped so. I’d be seriously annoyed if I turned out to have dragged myself all the way out here for nothing.

It was early evening when we finally reached the shrine, by the bank of the huge Lake Amaya. Nevrasa thanked me and paid me a very welcome 150 gold for my trouble. “I don’t suppose you see any mucksponges round here?” I said hopefully.

She looked out over the lake, nodded suddenly, and pointed to a small island a short way from the shore. Bugger.

I stripped off my armour and plunged into the lake, thankful that I didn’t wear my good clothes when out on missions. Unfortunately I’d forgotten that the waters around Morrowind, and indeed in many parts of Cyrodiil, tended to be full of slaughterfish. What was more, when I finally struggled back to the shore with my portion of muck, I found that it was too steep to climb back up. I had to swim quite a way along the bank to a place where it was shallow enough to allow me to climb out.

By the time I limped back to the shrine, soaked and muddy and bleeding from several slaugterfish bites, I felt more like cursing Vivec than praying to him. Nevrasa’s look of faint amusement didn’t help. “Perhaps you should learn a Water Walking spell,” she suggested politely.

Perhaps I should, I thought. That way I could waste all my magicka trying to cast it, and still end up soaked to the skin. (I was in a rather bad mood by this point.)

I dropped my piece of muck in the bowl by the shrine. I don’t really know how to describe the stuff, except that it was brown, slimy and… well, mucky. Presumably it had some kind of alchemical use, but I wouldn’t eat or drink anything made from that stuff if you paid me.

“Thank you for your humility, Lord Vivec,” I said, reciting the ‘Grace of Humility’ written on the shrine. “I shall neither strut nor preen in vanity, but shall know and give thanks for my place in the greater world.”

Almost immediately I felt a whole lot lighter – not in a metaphorical sense, but physically. My heavy armour and pack suddenly felt almost weightless, as if someone had just lifted them off my shoulders. It took me a couple of seconds to realise that the shrine had cast a Feather spell on me.

“Hey, thanks,” I said approvingly. Maybe this pilgrimage business wasn’t so bad after all.

Moments later it dawned on me that it was getting dark, and I was stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. By now I was getting pretty tired, and I really didn’t fancy making the long trek back to Balmora in the dead of night. I was just debating whether to ask for shelter at the nearby farmhouse, when I remembered the scrolls I’d picked up at the Mages’ Guild: Divine Intervention and Almsivi Intervention. I’d been told that travellers lost in the wilderness could use them to reach safety.

I hesitated for a moment before picking the Almsivi scroll pretty much at random. There was that familiar teleportation sound and sensation of lightness, and before I knew what was happening, I was standing in the courtyard of the Balmora Temple.

Wow. I really had to get more of those scrolls.

I hurried over to the Mages’ Guild in the hope of catching Sharn before she went to bed. “Special delivery,” I announced loudly, as I marched into the secluded corner where she sat writing at her desk. “One Dunmer enchanter’s skull for Sharn gra-Muzgob.”

Sharn, who hadn’t heard me approach, nearly jumped out of her skin. “Be quiet, will you?” she hissed. “You have the skull, then? Very good. Just let me finish writing these notes for Caius.”

I handed over the skull and waited for her to finish writing. Just as she laid down her quill and stood up, my eye fell on a book stuffed into a corner of a half-opened alchemy chest. Legions of the Dead? I’d seen that a dozen times in necromancers’ hideouts.

“So, Sharn,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “Are you sure you’re not a necromancer?”

She threw up her hands. “How many times do I have to tell you that the answer is no! I am not a necromancer!”

“So… why do you have a copy of Legions of the Dead?”

“How did you – ” She followed my gaze to the open chest. “Drat. Oh, all right, I admit it: I’m a necromancer. What are you going to do, report me to the Temple? Er… please don’t report me to the Temple,” she added hastily. “Do you know what they do to necromancers in Morrowind?”

I didn’t, but given the general Dunmer attitude towards their departed ancestors, I could well imagine. “Okay, fine,” I said with a sigh. “I won’t tell anyone your secret.”

“Thank you,” she said, with immense relief. “Would you like me to teach you some necromancy spells?”

“Er, no thanks, I – ”

“No, let me,” she begged. “I can teach you the Summon Ancestral Ghost spell, if you like. Or would you prefer Summon Skeletal Minion?”

“Whichever.” I had no intention of ever using either spell, given that I knew even less about Conjuration than I did about any of the other magical disciplines. Knowing me, I’d probably get it horribly wrong and end up summoning Sheogorath or something.

Sharn gave me the instructions for a summoning spell, and also some notes on the Nerevarine cult for Caius. “This Ashlander cult believes the long-dead hero Nerevar will be reborn to honour ancient promises to the tribes,” she explained. “According to legend, the prophesied Nerevarine will cast down the false gods of the Tribunal Temple, restore the traditional ancestor worship practiced by the Ashlanders, and drive all outlanders from Morrowind. Both Temple and Empire outlaw the cult, but it still persists among the Ashlanders.”

I glanced at Sharn’s notes. They were a lot longer and more detailed than the ones given to me by Hasphat – in fact, they were so long that I couldn’t be bothered to read through them properly. To tell the truth, I really wasn’t all that interested in the Nerevarine and all the things he was prophesised to do. The only thing that caught my eye was a reference to a prophecy called ‘The Stranger’, written in the form of a poem:

THE STRANGER

When earth is sundered, and skies choked black,
And sleepers serve the seven curses,
To the hearth there comes a stranger,
Journeyed far ’neath moon and star.

Though stark-born to sire uncertain
His aspect marks his certain fate.
Wicked stalk him, righteous curse him.
Prophets speak, but all deny.

Many trials make manifest
The stranger’s fate, the curses’ bane.
Many touchstones try the stranger
Many fall, but one remains.

Not exactly the best poetry I’d ever read, but no doubt it lost something in translation. Anyway, Caius would certainly be pleased.

That night, as I was walking to Caius’ house to deliver the notes, something very weird happened. I was just coming to the bridge when a Dunmer man in a green robe approached me, catching me by the sleeve. I tried to pull away from him, but he clung on with surprising strength.

“I am a Sleeper,” he intoned. “One among thousands. I bring you a message. Dagoth Ur calls you, Ada, and you cannot deny your Lord. The Sixth House is risen, and Dagoth is its glory.”

“What?” I asked in astonishment, mildly disturbed that he seemed to know my name. “The Sixth House is risen?”

He nodded. “The Sixth House, the Sleeping House, House Dagoth, the House of Lord Dagoth. The true house, the one house to welcome all true Dunmer, and drive the n’wah from our land.” That word again!

Once more I tried to shake myself free, but he was still clutching my sleeve. There was a glazed look in his eyes; if he hadn’t been speaking to me so clearly, I would have thought he was sleepwalking. Was he drunk? Drugged?

“Take heed, outlander,” he growled. “The day of reckoning is at hand. Take what you can, and leave our place, for when Lord Dagoth comes, this will be no place for you.”

“Right. Well, thanks for the warning.” I wrenched my sleeve from his grasp and hurried on my way, slightly creeped out. Crazy guy.

Once I had delivered the notes to Caius, and been rewarded with a promotion to Blades Apprentice, I explained to him that I didn’t feel quite ready to undertake any more Blades missions yet. That encounter with the ghost had reminded me that while I was pretty good against mortal opponents, I needed more practice – or better equipment – before trying to tackle the undead. He seemed to understand.

“Yes, I’d like to see you at a higher level of conditioning before sending you out again,” he said. “So take some time to polish your skills and enhance your cover story with a little freelance adventuring. When you've gotten some exercise and loot, come back, and I'll have some new orders for you.”

I was all too ready to obey. I’d spent the best part of a week chasing around the countryside at the behest of one guild or another, and I was downright exhausted. So I went to the Eight Plates, hired a room for two nights, and spent almost the whole of the next day in bed.