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]

On the morrow I thanked the priest for his hospitality and set out to the Dwemer village again. The rest of my trip was uneventful, so I’ll spare you most of the details, just a couple hundred cliff racers that got in my path and died without having a chance, and of course the fishing village Khuul. There I heard from the villagers that there was some trouble at Fort Frost Moth to the north east but that was none of my concern. At least not right now. So walking on, I came to the mountains, levitated over them and found myself in a canyon between two mountain sides. If I by any chance haven’t already told you how much I liked such a basic spell like levitate, well I do. It always comes in handy, you can use it to easily kill cliff racers and to get people up into the air without them causing anymore trouble. A spell for every occasion really.

But I digress from the story here, there I was in that canyon and sure enough after walking a small way to the west I found myself near not one but two Dwemer ruins. Now normally the difference would not have been noticeable and given my luck, I’m sure I would have stumbled into the Quarra Vampire lair instead of Bthungthumz but this was another time I could be grateful for the training I had received from both Divayth and Yagrum, who had even taught me the basics of the Dwemer language. The name on the first ruins read Druscashti so I knew that wasn’t the one. Sure enough, levitating up to the door of the second, the name read Bthungthumz.

Downing a fortify health potion before I entered, I went inside and found myself right away in danger; a centurion spider came running up to me and left me barely enough time to draw my blade and pierce the top of his armor before it was upon me. Walking further into the ruins I found myself facing more enemies then were usual in a ruin. I guess they were determined not to let me get near this Dahrk as they threw everything but the Dwemer sink at me. Ghosts, steam centurions, spiders, and spheres, they all wandered into my path and left me feeling tired by the time I came to the last room, and looking inside I found another ghost, but this one looked all the more vicious and dangerous then the normal ones. He came at me with a scream and cast a lightning bolt at me. Stumbling back the hallway in order to avoid the bolts, I suddenly felt my leg hit something and before I could recover, I fell backwards over a dead spider. I saw Dahrk draw in his power to deliver the final spell that would finish me and knew then that I was done for; there was no way for me to put up defenses in time.

But at that time, I reached into my pocket and felt the ring I had there slip over my finger, almost as if it had a will of its own. And then the lightning was upon me, I felt it as it was so close I could touch it; it singed my skin and and then it was gone. I had closed my eyes but now found myself still breathing, still alive where the lightning should have killed me.. I slowly opened my eyes, and was just in time to see the ghost of this Dahrk Mezalf get hit by his own lightning spell and vanish in a puff of smoke. I looked down at myself to make sure I was not hurt, and then looked at my finger. To my astonishment, the ring on my finger was not the one I found in the pond there, but it was the ring Arthur gave me. How it had got there, I have no idea. I knew I had given it to Divayth and my only guess is that I should have a long talk with him about this trick he pulled.

Gathering up my wits again, I walked over to the ashes of Dahrk and, sure enough, there was a ring there. Pocketing it I made my way to the exit determined not to stay another minute here in this place that had almost cost me my life. But as I opened the door to the outside, I found the sun had set, night was upon me, and what was worse I saw in the distance, from the direction of Druscashti several people approaching me. I could feel they were vampires and knew there was little sense in fleeing from them; with their gifts they would be faster than me by far. So I did the only thing I could think of; I closed the door again and sealed it up with my most powerful lock spell hoping that it would be enough to keep them out.

They must have known what I was doing as they sped up and the next minute they were at the door,. calling out to me to open up.. They told me they weren’t going to hurt me, they just wanted to talk. Yeah right, and I’m the Easter bunny. When I kept quiet and they found I wasn’t going to be fooled, they started pounding away on the door; surprisingly, though, they never tried to use magic to open the door, surprising at least until I thought about them and remembered that the Quarra were the Warrior caste of the Vampires, so they had little or no proficiency in Magic use.

Even without that, I can safely assure you I was terrified. Here I was in a ruins that had nearly killed me and outside there were Vampires that wanted to kill me. Luckily though, my spells seemed to be holding out. I even cast them a couple of times extra just to be safe. Then I slouched down onto the floor, put my back against the wall, and waited for sunrise. The night was disturbing of course; they never let down pounding on the door through the entire night. I hardly got any sleep that night, but I was sure no sleep was better then an eternal sleep. As the time went by, I noticed they increased their effort and by that I could even tell how soon the sun would rise again, until I heard one of them say they had to get back now lest they were killed when the sun came. They shouted some curses at me through the door but then they left.

Of course I had not been born yesterday so I suspected a ruse and kept low. In fact I must have dozed off then because when I woke up, I saw the sunlight creeping in through the holes of the door. I slowly dispelled my locks and opened the door. Luckily the sun was really there, looking down at me from above and it seemed to welcome me. When I turned and looked at the door, I realized I had never been happier with my gift then I was at that time; the door looked like an old road. With potholes in it and dents as far as the eye could see, in fact the effects of my spells were probably the only things that kept them from falling out of their battered hinges.

Feeling the after effects of a sleepless night, I wandered into the canyon and found it hard even to levitate over the mountains. I made my way back first to Khuul, then to Ald Velothi where I saw a gallows. Coming closer I found they had hanged Tavynu and had kept her there as a warning to other outlaws that law was swift. Tracing my steps back to Gnisis, I came by the pond, stopping there to reflect on what had happened a couple days back and that was on my mind as I made my way back into Gnisis. Not having had a good night’s sleep and traveling for almost two days straight, I entered Arvs Drelen and walked straight to the room I had used there, saw the bed, fell in it and slept for almost a day.

I knew when I woke up, I should have gone to Baladas first but I was just so tired from the entire ordeal. But now, I felt refreshed and ready again to face Baladas so I made my way upstairs and found him not surprised to see me again at all. He told me he had heard me come in and had planned on coming to see me, but he got caught up in his work again and he asked me if he had told me that before. I couldn’t help but smile. Funny how you grow fond of someone’s habits so soon sometimes. But then it was time for business and I gave him the ring. He seemed thrilled by it and even before I could ask him about it, he told me,

“You have my support Alexander. I’ll make a short note for you to give to Aryon and then you can be on your way if you wish.”

I thanked him and as he made the note to Aryon, I stood there glad to have succeeded when even I thought I would not. He gave me the note and told me to run along now as he had some more work to do. I thanked him again and was on my way back to Tel Vos.


I remembered I still had a mark spell in Vos so I used recall to get back there and made my way up the hill to Tel Vos. I clearly recalled Aryon’s promise to make me his Mouth when I succeeded in this. So when I entered his chambers and found him looking down as if something bad had just happened I knew there was trouble.

I handed him the note and told him I had succeeded, and asked him for advancement. He looked at me in an odd way and I knew something wasn’t going the way I had thought it would go. He was just about to speak when I heard laughter behind me. I turned around and saw Neloth standing there. He spoke,

“Oh no, Master Aryon, allow me to explain the situation. My dear Alexander,” he said with great sarcasm, “this is where it stops. You will not become Mouth and more than that, never will you get further into this house. I know Master Aryon told you he would promote you, but do you remember the reason why he sent you for Baladas? For his proposal to succeed, he needs all the votes he can get and I’ve taken the liberty to take this up with Therana and convinced her that someone that would allow you to advance would never be able to make a good proposal. Or in other words, were he to be your Patron, he will lose two votes and his proposal will not be carried.”

It felt like a physical blow to me. I didn’t blame Aryon of course, but nonetheless, was this where it stopped? Then I thought about Divayth and told Neloth that I would seek him out and that he was sure to be my Patron. His answer left me more devastated then before,

“Oh you can seek him out Alexander, but that will not do you any good. You see there is an ancient rule in our house saying, as I told you before, a Master may only be Patron to another once. An Archmagister more times, but he isn’t Archmagister now is he. So when I came into the council house that day, had he not been there, you wouldn’t even have been allowed into the house, but he was your patron then and that was the only reason you’re standing here now. Unfortunately, as I just told you, he can now no longer sponsor you and that way is thus sealed.”

He followed that up with some more laughter. I felt my knees buckle. This was it then, the end of my carrier. I would never become anymore than Lawman for the house. I felt ready to cry with rage. How could this happen? I was already considering other ways to rise in stature here in the province but knew it was futile; no other house would even have me now that I had joined the Telvanni. And of course there were no councilors left, I mean Therana and Neloth were clearly against me; Divayth and Aryon had been disabled both by politics and, Dratha, well from what I’d heard of her, she would sooner fry me alive for being a man then sponsor me. No, this was the end of it.