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]

For now I decided to get back to the Hole in the Wall and spend the night there, surprisingly after that first day I hadn’t been troubled by Neloth anymore. Even though his tower was so close to the hole in the wall that had he wanted to, he could have wiped the entire building with me inside out with a single fire ball. But I guess maybe he had forgotten about me.

On the morrow I found myself once again taking the boat to Vos and walking to Tel Vos. Having looked around the last I was there, I was able to find the entrance to the chambers of Master Aryon without much trouble, I levitated up there and entered. Typical Telvanni style there unlike the service tower I had previously visited, I was able to find the room of Aryon fast. I felt myself nervously approaching him from the back and cleared my throat to let him know I was here.

He turned around and I looked into the face of the most normal Telvanni so far. He was far younger then any of the others I had seen so far and almost looked friendly, had it not been for the Daedric short word he was holding, he would have looked like someone you would normally meet on the street. Well except for the blue robe of course, and the red eyes, and the beginning of the same ageless expression as Divayth had, but other then that, he looked very normal.

He greeted me with friendship and told me he admired my already fast rise in the house, he confided that he once was student to Divayth as well but for far less then a year, even so after that he had rapidly made it to wizard and later to master he told me. But then he went to business and asked me if I had ever heard the name Baladas Demnevanni before. I told him I had since Divayth mentioned him once in passing concerning Dwemer history. “Well” Aryon explained “Baladas is currently a wizard in our house but he decided not to have his stronghold built. He didn’t think it looked nice or so the story goes, so he went off as happens occasionally and has settled into a Velothi tower in Gnisis. That’s a place on the other side of the continent. However, since there have been things that have come up, I want you to go to him Alexander and offer him advancement to Master on the condition that he votes with me the during the next grand council.” I asked him what that was a grand council and he replied “A grand council is something rare. It means all the councilors of all the houses come together and vote on the most important matters at that time. During the next grand council I intend to petition the council for a lift on the restrictions on the training of magic. Now the mages guild has the monopoly and I intend to compete with them and bring even more esteem to the Telvanni. For this I need all the votes I can get so to add a councilor would be to add a vote.”

He then marked Gnisis on my map and wished me good luck in persuading Baladas of this. He mentioned as I was leaving, that it would be a good idea to go there prepared and make sure I knew what kind of person he was. In other words ask around in the town after him.
Looking through my backpack I found myself still in possession of one of the Almsivi intervention scrolls I had been given by Felisa in case of emergencies in Tel Branora. So I used that and found myself in the temple in Ald Ruhn.

This was actually the first time I had visited the home city of the great house Redoran and wanted to take the opportunity to look around. But walking through the streets, I found myself stared at. I knew it had to be the people just knowing somehow that I belonged to the Telvanni and it showed. Where everyone had been kind to me in Sadrith mora, here the people were all grouchy and mean and short with me. So much for sightseeing I guess. So I made my way to the silt strider and with it, traveled to Gnisis. Once there I found myself on a landing platform. It must be a busy port to have such a site here.

I followed the advice of Master Aryon and asked around after Baladas. I found he was living in his tower he had named Arvs Drelen. It was to be found on the other side of town and was hard to miss when looking at it. The entire side of the mountain there was part of the tower. I had of course seen the Telvanni towers already but this would be the first Velothi tower I would see from the inside.

Walking up to the door and checking it, I found it was closed and locked. I guess Baladas really liked his privacy here, but fortunately the lock was simple enough for a small spell to do the trick. Entering the tower I found myself impressed, I found power radiating from someone even here at the entrance. I knew I was again going to meet a worthy member of the Telvanni.

Walking through the small hall there I found myself in a hallway leading to the left and right. The way to the right seemed nothing special but the power was clearly coming from the left. So picking up my courage I walked to the left and followed the hallway there. Quickly disposing myself of a rat lurking in the hall, I found myself before a locked door. Reaching for the doorknob, I froze just before I grabbed it. One of the first thing Divayth had thought me was that looks are deceiving and that no smart wizard would allow just anyone to approach him unnoticed or unopposed.

So carefully drawing back my arm, I sent out a piece of my mind to probe the door and of course my instinct was correct; it was heavily enchanted sure to incinerate anyone touching it. So I walked a little way back into the hall and used a simple telekinesis spell to touch the door from a distance. It burst a flame ball that would surely have killed me but then seemed normal again.

And sure enough, this time when I sent out my mind for spells, there were none left. So I slowly opened the door and found myself face to face with the second thing Divayth had thought me about wizard, why have one line of defense when you can have two or more. True Fyr logic there but even if it didn’t seem to make much sense then, I had learned he was always right.

Curiously enough the creature never made a move after me. He just stood there and sniffed at me with that crocodile beak of his, and after having determined something for itself, it slowly made it’s way to the other side of the room again. Puzzled by this strange encounter, I walked along the wall towards the stairs, determined not to be outmaneuvered by it. And up the stairs I found myself face to face with yet another challenge, a real working Dwemer centurion had positioned itself there and looked only seconds away from striking out. But something must have prevented it from doing so as he suddenly spun and rolled back to a corner.