Alexander in Morrowind (2) Options

[Alexander]

Alexander in Morrowind, Chapter 2


I spent more then a year at Tel Fyr. And many things happened there, but I will not go into all of them. Suffice to say, after I had found myself using magic Divayth offered to take me in for some time and teach me the basics of magic. He promised me that the headaches would never return; the cause appeared to be the gift of magic seeking release and not getting it. But Divayth also made it clear to me that while he could teach me the basics, the rest I had to learn for myself. “It’s always hard to teach someone else what you know, because their brain works in another way, but with you being also from another world, the makes it even harder,” or so he told me. And I’m sure had it not been for the second gift of Azura, I would not have been able to remember everything I was told and thought in that time.

So in that year he taught me many a basic spell, how to transport your body or that of another person, how to levitate or make someone else do so. How to heal and how to damage. How to calm people and how to get them into such a rage that they act without thinking. He taught me how to lock and unlock doors and how to cloak myself with my surroundings. And much, much more. I cannot and will not even begin to try and explain the procedures here as I’m sure you either already know them yourself, or do not and if you do not, then there must be a good reason for that.

During this time I found myself growing fond of not only Divayth but his daughters as well. Now, just so you know nothing ever happened there; Divayth had made it clear that he would not allow that and I’m not a man to not honor his host’s wishes. But we did grow to be friends.

Now all this time I hardly ever set foot outside Tel Fyr so I had no way of knowing what was going on in the outside world, but Divayth kept me informed there as well. He also told me things about the history of the province, how the Chimer became the Dunmer, how the Tribunal had come to be and more. So I can safely say after that year, even without the help of Divayth I would be able to make my way around Morrowind, well so long as nothing bad happened anyway.

Then one day Divayth approached me and told me that I should think about moving on and what I wanted to do with my life here. I knew I couldn’t stay at Tel Fyr for the rest of my life, especially since I knew I would never die of old age anyway, so I had thought about this a lot. And I made my decision then. I asked him, “How do I become a part of the Telvanni?” I knew being a part of a house would help me more then anything else to adapt here and looking at the three houses, the Hlaalu would never be my choice; they were backstabbers and nothing more. The Redoran were the most honorable without a doubt, but also the ones that had the most rules, and with all their honor, they had allowed a dishonorable person like Venim to lead them for so long- no, that would not be my choice either. Now the Telvanni, having never been fond of rules in the first place, and with their great towers, the choice was easily made.

I did not get the reaction I had expected from Divayth. I had maybe expected him to make me a member himself or something like that, but he just stood there and told me:

“If this is what you wish, then I show you the way. Though it saddens me to say, I will not be able to help you further there. To advance it will take your own effort. Becoming a Telvanni is easy, staying one and not getting killed by competitors is much harder and I do not have the time to constantly protect you from others. So if you want this, you must do it on your own.”

I guess that was one thing I hadn’t taken fully into account. Being a high ranking Telvanni was the same as being in jeopardy all the time. No rules meant that anyone that killed you would gain status in the eyes of others. But even then, I realized it was either Telvanni or no one, so my choice was made. And I made that clear to Divayth.

He announced that it was time for bed and that tomorrow we would go to Sadrith Mora and get the easiest part out of the way there.

On the morrow we were awakened by banging on the door; being the one closest to it I went to see who would be calling this early in the morning. It appeared to be a messenger carrying a package who told me he was in search of the Lord of Fyr. I told him where to find him and that was the last I saw of him. He left when I was eating that morning. And then Divayth appeared in the doorway carrying the package the messenger had brought. He gave to me and told me it was a gift he had ordered brought from the House Vault in Vivec. I opened it to find an Ebony Long sword of the finest quality. I knew from what I’ve been told that this was a princely gift, not many swords were a match for this one and so I thanked Divayth many times.

And then it was time to go. I said my goodbyes to the daughters and followed Divayth outside; he told me he had never been very fond of water so we would be transporting ourselves to Sadrith Mora instead of taking the boat. Which I, of course, found amusing seeing as how his tower was surrounded by water on all sides. But we all have our little quirks now and then so doing as he asked and taking his hand, we went to Sadrith Mora the fast way. I can hardly described how that felt, it felt like having your body split into many tiny pieces and then being put back together somewhere else, and the funny thing was, my first thought there was, “I want to go again.” And then I looked at where I was, Sadrith Mora, the biggest city of the Telvanni and the home to both one of the masters and the Mouths, as some of the most trusted servants of the masters were called.

Now Sadrith Mora could best be described of as a Mushroom city. All the houses, all the buildings, everything was of the same material as Tel Fyr only smaller and in different shapes. I had already been told that the manufacturing of the towers allowed for much diversity but this was beyond what I had imagined. In the center of the town was what I found is Tel Naga, the tower of one of the oldest members of the Telvanni. And off on the west side of town was an equally impressive building which had to be the council hall. Walking there alongside Divayth I took in the surroundings even more. And especially what appeared to be a slave market ahead of us. I looked upon it and felt my blood begin to boil. One of the worst things I could imagine was slavery and I had always held it in contempt. We actually walked right past it and I saw the slaver there take his whip and threaten one of the caged Khajiit. Noticing my enragement, Divayth stopped and leaned closer to whisper something to me;

“One of the prime values of the Telvanni is to act on your own. Let no one tell you what is good and what is not but decide for yourself what is. And to want the power, you must be ready to wield it as well without hesitation.”

I got the hint and approached the slaver slowly., Upon seeing me he came to me and asked me if I perchance wanted to buy one or more slaves. He assured me that they wouldn’t die, well not too soon anyway, and that they were perfect for use in experiments of any kind.

Well that was not a smart thing for him to say.. Focusing my will I released it on him and he suddenly found himself floating upside down several feet up in the air. Probably without thinking about it he whipped out his whip and tried to swing it at me- a thought later and his whip was incinerated. I guess that got the message clear because he now resorted to begging for his life. I wasn’t going to kill him of course, but I did want him to know he could not try and hit me without getting something back for it, so I sent him spinning round and round till he was so dizzy his face was turning green. Not wanting him to soil my nice robe, I let him back down and once he had given in to his urges, I demanded the key to the bracers and cells of the slaves. He reluctantly gave them to me but warned me that Master Neloth would hear of this. I knew of course that was the local Telvanni master but I was bound to make some enemies anyway so no sense in avoiding it.

[Alexander]

He graciously offered me the room he had downstairs where he used to house servants before he decided he didn’t need them anymore. He was also good enough to inform me not to go into the room with the locked door as he had had a little experiment in there and there were still two skeleton warriors inside. Of course he would have dealt with it but he hadn’t had the time; that seemed to happen to him often, not having the time there, though I expected he was just a bit lazy in his old years.

Either way, I found the room and had a pleasant night even though across the hall were two skeletons. Waking up the next morning, I wondered what Baladas had in store for me next. So after I had eaten what I still had in my pack, I went upstairs and asked him about the next chore. “Have you ever heard of Dahrk Mezalf?” he asked me. Of course I hadn’t. “Well,” he went on to say, “Dahrk was one of the smiths that worked under the guidance of the great inventor Kagrenac. He created many inventions in his time and I believe his ghost is still roaming the earth here. I want you to go to the Dwemer village of Bthungthumz, where rumor has it he was buried and find me his enchanted ring. I would do it myself of course, but I seem to be very busy lately so if you do this for me Alexander, then there is a big chance that I will join the Council and even side with Aryon for this vote.”

As empty as that promise was , I knew I had little choice but to go there and do this for Baladas. Little choice indeed. So after he had told me where I could find the ruins, and after he had told me many many times not to enter the ruins to the west of these ruins as that contained the headquarters of a Vampire clan, I was on my way. I knew there were ways to speed up the travel but I decided to walk most of the way and get a nice view of the area there. This also gave me some time to think. There were still a few loose ends in my life now.

For one thing there was Arthur; I remembered the day we left for Sadrith Mora I gave that ring to Divayth as I had said I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. Had he shown himself a true friend, this Arthur, then he would have given me a bit more than just a ring, but no I guess he had more pressing matters to attend to. Well fine. Just so long as he didn’t come back to me should he ever need help. Even I knew the absurdity of that thought; the Nerevar needing my help, come on. Like that was ever going to happen.

And of course speaking of loose ends, there was Master Neloth. I was still haunted by his conversation with Divayth. “One may only sponsor a member once.” How odd. To this day I had no idea what he meant, but I feared I would not like it when I found out. I was awaked from thoughts by a sweet Dunmer voice calling out to me; I looked up and saw a very beautiful girl standing in front of a pond. She introduced herself as Synette Jeline and told me she had just been walking here, when all of a sudden her ring had come loose and had fallen into the water and if I would be so nice enough to get it out for her. Well how can one refuse such a beautiful girl? So without hesitation I waded into the water and went looking for her ring, but as I was in there and feeling the bottom with my hands, it dawned on me what an odd story it was really, a ring slipping from a finger and landing several feet beyond in the water. So after thinking that over, I realized something here wasn’t quite right and looking up at Synette I saw her looking at something in the distance, not just looking but really looking like there was something or someone there.

Realizing this was one situation where it would be better safe then sorry, I pretended to search on while gathering my will, and when I had enough I unleashed a paralyzing strike to that spot Synette was looking at, and sure enough, I found myself right. Something that was there had now appeared because of the paralyze spell and it seemed to be a woman with a bow all dressed in Chitin armor. I was glad I had chosen this approach for I knew had I instead levitated I would have found myself pierced with arrows, but I didn’t have a lot of time to gloat over my luck, as Synette then jumped into the water carrying a vicious looking dagger. It seemed she had overcome her fear of the water all of a sudden and I had barely enough time to draw my own sword before she was on me. It was a close call that time, mostly because she was so close and a long sword, as useful as it is, is not really suited for close combat like that. But after I pushed her away I was able to pierce her with my blade and that was the end of it. As a strange coincidence, I looked down right then and saw a ring lying there, and not being able to smother a small smile, I spoke out loud, “Ah, here is your ring Synette, but I guess you won’t be needing it now, will you?” And with that I put the ring in my pocket determined to hang onto it as a lesson to myself never to trust people on appearance.

Just then I felt a stinging pain in my left arm and when I looked at it, I saw an arrow stuck in it and was just able to duck out of the way for the next arrow to come flying in. Having been too hasty with declaring victory I understood my other attacker had escaped from the paralyze spell. I couldn’t see her but I sure saw the arrows as they were flying towards me. So after having determined the location where the arrows were coming from, I released a wall of air towards her. It not only deflected all the arrows that she fired at me but also when it reached her, knocked her down. I quickly got up and rushed to her. I put the tip of my blade on her throat and told her to yield or die. She of course choose the first and threw down her arms. She told me her name was Tavynu Tedran, and she begged me for her life. I asked her to how many people they had done this already and she shrugged and said she had lost count. Of course the ploy was brilliant, a sweet young lady lost a ring and any gentleman would dive in there to find it. Only once he emerged with the ring, he would get a couple of arrows as reward.

I demanded she get up and follow me to Ald Velothi to be brought to justice, only after having searched her of course and it was helpful as I found the reason for her chameleon- a very strong amulet. I knew that would come in handy one day in the future. Meanwhile, the important thing now was to get to Ald Velothi and get her to some magistrate and myself to a healer. That arrow was still in my arm and wasn’t going anywhere either. Fortunately the rest of that trip was uneventful and coming into Ald Velothi, I handed Tavynu over to the local Redoran authorities and went to the outpost there to get cured. The local priest was kinder then most of his kind. He removed the arrow and healed the wound with magic, making the recovery very swift.

Deciding I had had just about enough travel for one day, I decided to stick around for the rest of the day and go on the next. Luckily the priest that had healed me was kind enough to offer me a place to stay for the night, even though he appeared to be Redoran. I guess he either wasn’t aware that I was Telvanni, or couldn’t care less about my allegiance to a house. I was glad for that and it made me realize that there are people in all houses that are kind even though the general appearance of the house didn’t appear to be.