I heaved a sigh of relief that we apparently weren't going to end up sleeping on the street and followed Ervesa into Suran.

Ahh... what a relief....

"What do you mean, you're full?"

Was that the sound of a violin string being plucked, or was it another thread of Adryn's sanity breaking loose?

whereas the tapestries showed rich, detailed scenes - the one closest to me depicted what looked like some sort of grand battle, centred on three figures clustered around one lying on the ground

I liked this one. A very good little bit of scene building to have the Temple display artwork of the fall of Indoril Nerevar. After all, it was through his death that gave rise to the Tribunal, and little though she knows it, this is exactly the reason why Adryn is here in Morrowind.

I really enjoyed Adryn’s impressions of the temple, both the description and her reaction to the strangeness of it.

I swallowed hard as I realised I had no idea about Dunmer funeral customs whatsoever. True, so far they were preferable to the Bosmer ones (understatement!), but putting remains on display seemed rather... distasteful.

I love this passage, and it’s only one example. Adryn’s wry thoughts keep her humor and personality right at the front without detracting from the seriousness of the situation.

Uh oh, mad orc berserker? I wonder if Adryn’s danger magnet will somehow drag her past him. And she is just trying just to get indoors.

@Thomas Kaira: Adryn's slowly fraying sanity has been giving us the background music for this chapter, yes! We're just about to start the finale. And thank you! I spent some time considering possible Temple decorations, and this seemed pretty logical and a nice nod to the plot, as well.

@Grits: I'm glad you enjoyed the Temple passage! I really wanted to get some first impressions going, because all of this is very, very new to Adryn. And damnit, I wasn't actually planning on having her meet Umbra. Now I feel as if I'm not doing my duty in tormenting Adryn. *ponderponder*

Last installment, Ervesa and Adryn went searching for places to stay. The Temple mysteriously couldn't have them for some reason Adryn doesn't understand, the tradehouse was full because of merchants frightened of some mad berserker Orc in the hills, but they have been told there might be a possibility. Now what could that be...

Note: This chapter contains some sexual content; it's minor and very indirectly alluded to so I really don't think it breaks the forum's rating, but since this is the first such occurence in the fic I thought I ought to mention it for anyone who really wants to avoid such things.

Chapter 4, part 5

*****

"You are joking."

"Um."

Ervesa shuffled her feet. My gaze drifted from her boots (also insectoid - seriously, I do not understand local fashion choices, insect is never 'in') to the door of the place we'd been told we might be able to stay for the night.

Now, I have to admit I was a stranger to this country, totally unfamiliar with their customs and norms to do with everything ranging from food to fashion to exterior decorating. But honestly?

Red lights mean only one thing.

And any attempt at convincing me that actually, in Morrowind those red lanterns meant free housing for people named 'Adryn' or anything like that was doomed to failure by the sign that hung over the front door. The sign saying 'Desele's House of Earthly Delights.'

Nobody is that enthusiastic about mattresses.

"You can't possibly be serious," I tried again.

"Er. Well." Ervesa was studying her feet. Maybe she was reconsidering her choice in footwear - hope springs eternal - but I suspected she was just trying to avoid looking me in the eye. "They'll have free beds?"

"Free? Try pre-occupied," I snapped.

"Look, I don't like this any more than you do," Ervesa said, lifting her eyes to look at me for the first time since I'd spotted the lights. "But we need somewhere to sleep, and unless we want to hike out of town and sleep on the bare ground... in the rain..." she lifted her head in the direction of the clouds gathering overhead. "We can just try to get rooms for the night without any... extras."

I looked at the clouds. Looked at the entrance. Pondered whether sleeping outside in freezing rain was really worse than this, then decided sadly that yes, my chances of dying out here were probably higher than dying in there (even if the death would be decidedly more dignified) and gave a grim nod. "All right. Lead on. But I'm not happy about this."

*****

I tried very hard not to look around the inside of the brothel, tried to ignore the stares of the patrons and the curious looks of the women wearing...

Weren't they cold?

Ignore it, Adryn! I firmly fixed my attention on a picture hanging on the opposite wall. It was a nice picture! With pretty colours! Showing...

...I had no idea it was possible to fit a grape in there.

Thwarted in my attempts to pretend we were somewhere (anywhere) other than where we were, I looked over to where Ervesa was trying to explain the situation to the owner.

"...pretty unusual, is all I'm saying. Lost travellers are one thing, but Armigers generally stay at the temple unless they're looking for companionship. Are you sure you only want-" the owner was saying. She was a Breton, still quite good-looking but with faint wrinkles at the corner of her eyes showing that she wasn't as young as her... employees. Her dark brown hair fell in waves over her shoulders and down to her...

Seriously, wasn't she cold?

I stared at Ervesa's hair, which seemed to be the only safe thing in the room to look at. It was very nice hair - black, twisted together at the back near the top of her head and then plaited so that it hung free in two thin braids to about the middle of her back. Honestly, it looked like a hairstyle that should take hours, a professional and possibly alteration magic to obtain, but I couldn't imagine Ervesa going to that much effort. She was a warrior... bard... thing after all, and at least the first half of that was something that didn't usually go hand-in-hand with creative fashion choices.

Well, unless we count wearing the same clothes for two weeks, rips, patches, bloodstains, dented rusty armour, perfume in the "dead people" flavour or - here - pretending to be a giant insect as fashion choices. Which I for one don't.

Indeed, the only concession to her appearance Ervesa seemed to have made were two earrings of some sparkling amber gemstone which she must have slipped on at some point after we got into town because I couldn't remember seeing them earlier. They were pretty, but small and easy to overlook, swinging from the tips of her ears as she turned around to face me-

Wait a moment.

"-Adryn?"

I started guiltily and pretended I had not just spent some time staring at Ervesa's ears. "Yes?"

There was a clinking sound as she shook a set of keys in front of my face.

"We've got a room."

*****

I stared at the bed.

It was definitely a bed. Four posters, fluffy pillows, a pile of blankets high enough I started to suspect the owner had a hoarding problem, or maybe was preparing for a sudden glacier attack. (Sneaky things, glaciers are, you never know when they'll pop up.) Its aura of general bedness filled the whole room.

Moreover, its singularity filled the whole room, because there was definitely, emphatically only one of it. It was a bed on its own, a bed asserting its independence. It screamed, insofar as furniture can scream, "Look upon me, I am the greatest, softest, most comfortable, most bed-like bed that ever existed, and I tolerate no rivals!"

"I'll take the floor," Ervesa said.

I remembered with a guilty start that this person had saved my life only a few hours ago, and I probably ought to be more grateful. "No, no, I'll take the floor. You've had a long day. Fighting tusky things. Saving poor innocent travellers from them. That sort of thing."

Ervesa shook her head. "Taking the bed would be profoundly unchivalrous. Besides, you still need to recover from your shock. You take it."

Shock?

Oh, right, almost getting gored by the aforementioned tusky thing. Funny how I'd almost managed to forget that in light of new, brothel-related trauma.

"No, no, I..." My voice trailed off as something dreadful occurred to me. "Wait a moment."

Ervesa tilted her head inquisitively.

"This is- this is- I have read these books, all right, I know how this goes. Any moment now one of us will say, well we could just share, the bed is big enough, and then later- in fact, this whole set-up is..." I closed my eyes in the futile hope that it would somehow diminish the horror of the upcoming sentence. "I am feeling more like the heroine of a romance novel every minute."

There was a noise that could, possibly, have been a suppressed giggle.

I cracked one eye open and looked at Ervesa with suspicion.

Her face was perfectly impassive, but her eyes were dancing in a highly questionable manner. "I have to say... and I do take your point about this being a very, ah, stereotypical situation... you'd make an unlikely romance novel heroine." While I was trying to work out whether I ought to be insulted, she continued, "So, what's your suggestion then?"

"Well." I presented my solution. "We could both take the floor."

Ervesa gave me a thoroughly unimpressed look. I was surprised; usually, the sorts of looks my suggestions are met with run along the lines of "please repeat that, because I think a butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the world caused passing turbulence which changed the sound of the words before they reached my ear - this being more likely than you actually saying what I just heard" or "Since I cannot convince myself some auditory illusion caused this I am led to the inescapable conclusion that you were raised by maladjusted wolves, possibly in the Shivering Isles". (Believe me, I am heartily familiar with both of these looks as well as their variations.)

In short, unimpressed was a much milder reaction than I was expecting. Still, I felt obliged to defend my suggestion. "Besides, we don't know- we don't want to know where that bed has been."

*****

In the end, it was surprisingly comfortable. The Bed (it deserved the capital letters) was furnished with enough fluffy pillows to occupy an entire orphanage of children in a fight for hours, as well as more blankets that would have been necessary in Windhelm during Morning Star. I had to wonder why they went to so much effort, given that what was meant to take place on the Bed was - and I am admittedly no expert - not something that particularly involved those things.

I just hoped they washed them afterwards, or else...

...you know, Adryn, let's not continue down that line of thought.

At any rate, there were enough accessories of various sorts to make each of us a comfortable nest, and in the dim candlelight the whole thing seemed almost like an adventure. Brave explorer Adryn - now complete with sidekick - venturing into the hidden depths of prostitution...

"Well, good night, I guess," Ervesa interrupted my daydreams.

"Good night and... I'm sorry for complaining so much about this," I said, pricked by my guilty conscience. "You did save my life earlier, after all. I don't mean to be ungrateful."

What? Even I can be polite sometimes!

"Don't worry about it. Saving people is part of the job description, and you'd done most of the work in paralysing the kagouti. Dragging people miles out of their way and forcing them to stay in..." she paused, "profoundly unsuitable, shall we say, circumstances isn't."

"Still. Sorry." I relaxed back into the purloined blankets, trying to ignore the stripped Bed looming above me. It was soft and warm and I was very tired...

It was at that point the noise started.

I won't describe it in detail, as I wish I didn't remember it in detail. Suffice it to say that it was completely impossible to ignore and left no doubts whatsoever about what sort of establishment this was.

I looked at Ervesa.

She looked at me.

"I'll see if Helviane has any playing cards," she said.

*****

Notes: When I have time, I might see if I can snag a screenshot of Ervesa - I gave her one of the modded hairstyles (it may have been Ren's Oblivion Hair or Rin's Beauty Shop, I forget) and edited it slightly to give her her ears back.

Next

Ervesa's ears were probably the safest thing to look at, given the surroundings. I doubt that “Leave us alone” was the oddest request made that night. I love that Ervesa takes pains with her hair, despite the difficulty.

A screenshot would be great!

Adryn's reactions to first entering the HoED were absolutely priceless!



Considering all the things they do around these parts, I sincerely doubt that.



Sounds like its gonna be a loooooong night.

@Grits: Yes, I wouldn't have wanted to spend too long looking at anything else in the room! And I will try to dig up a screenshot - although it looks as if I may have actually accidentally deleted my custom version while installing MGE, meaning I have to do all this again, aaaaargh! so it may take a bit. ><

@Thomas Kaira: Glad you enjoyed Adryn's rather... unhappy... reaction to her night's accommodation. XD

skipping summary because I have all of five minutes to post this.

Previous

Chapter 4, part 6

*****

It says something about the way things were going that I was entirely unsurprised when the cards Ervesa came back with some minutes later had very... creative illustrations. By which I mean that I had certainly never seen the figures depicted in quite that way before; I didn't think some of those positions were even anatomically possible.

But I did my best to ignore that (something I was sadly getting a lot of practice in) and instead studied the cards themselves. They weren't quite the ones I was used to even apart from the... interesting... drawings. The suits were slightly different; "cups" seemed to have become "shields" in Morrowind (not that I could quite blame them given the wildlife), I didn't see any Emperors, Knights or Legionnaires but spotted a King and Queen of swords, and finally the trumps looked different as well. At least, I certainly didn't recall a Pilgrim in the decks I was used to, but then again I really wasn't inclined to study the cards too closely so I might be misreading them.

"Hmmm." Ervesa also seemed to be trying to ignore the illustrations. "Pity we don't have a third, we could have a round of sedrathi."

"We could always invite one of our neighbours over for a round, since they seem so... active," I responded. Ervesa choked. "I don't suppose you know any good two-player card games?" Most of the ones I knew were meant for groups. Besides, something I'd learned in my travels was that games can be completely different between different provinces, and it would probably behoove me to pick up the local ones (of which I assumed 'sedrathi' was one) sooner rather than later.

"I know a few, although I wouldn't necessarily call them good. But..." she shrugged. "I'm sure we'll make do somehow."

"Mmm." I nodded.

Honestly, even learning a new game as I was, I wasn't expecting the play to be all that interesting, or Ervesa to be much competition. I'd spent years playing cards with some of the greatest rogues in Skyrim, after all, and Ervesa was a knight (ish) which meant honesty, integrity and a natural disadvantage.

As a result, I was rather surprised when our game quickly turned into a friendly competition as to who could cheat most outrageously.

"I have the king of rings and the aces of staves, shields and swords," I said, laying down my hand triumphantly. Beat that.

"Hmm. Very good, very good indeed." Ervesa looked at her hand. "I have the ace of rings, ace of shields, and... two aces of staves."

"Quite miraculous," I said drily. "I don't think the rules work for this event, given that there's only meant to be one of each card in the game."

"Well." Her voice was mild. "It would help if you didn't use illusions."

I tried to jerk my hand away but she was faster. "Sheogorath take it," I muttered as the dispelling magicka washed over me - in particular, as it washed over the cards I was holding and shifted the aces of staves and shields into a seven and nine of swords respectively. It wasn't something you could use in a serious game where everyone was on the look-out for that sort of magic, but I'd managed to fool quite a few people who weren't expecting it with that little trick all the same.

"I think that means I win." Ervesa sounded satisfied.

"Wait just a moment. I know I saw you slip the aces of shields and staves up your sleeve when you dealt, but where did the other two come from?"

"Well, you're one to talk given that that was how you got the ace of swords," she'd spotted that? I thought for sure I'd got away with it, "and- wait!-"

This time I was faster and managed to grab the offending cards out of her hand. "Wait a moment, these aren't those cards at all! This is Masser and that's... I'm not actually sure, but definitely a trump card." I raised an eyebrow. "How exactly were you planning on sneaking those past me?"

"Well." Ervesa was coolly unrepentant. She'd have made an excellent thief with that attitude towards her crimes. "I thought that since those two superficially resemble the cards in question and if you looked closer you'd be distracted by the illustrations, seeing as they are among the ones where the artist took the most... creative license... don't look!"

Alas, my eyes were a little faster than either my ears or my brain in this case, something I had never regretted quite so much as in that moment.

"I- what- how-" I'd never been a drinker but suddenly, faced with the prospect of having that burned into my memory, strong liquor gained an entirely new appeal. "How is that even anatomically possible and why in the name of the Nine would anyone do it for fun?"

"As far as the first goes, I'm quite certain it's not. Years of combat training tell me that his legs would have broken long ago at that angle, and I don't think you could do that with a slaughterfish anyway. As for the second..." Ervesa shrugged philosophically. "There is a story of Saint Delyn that goes like this: once, when he was young, he came across two philosophers arguing next to a mudcrab colony. When he asked them what they were doing, one of them said: 'I am trying to explain to my imbecilic colleague that the movement of the mudcrabs symbolically expresses the movement of Nirn and the alignment of the stars!' The other retorted: 'No, you fool, the mudcrabs are demonstrating the creation of the world and the death of Lorkhan! See, if you take the one to the right there to be-'

"Saint Delyn shrugged and continued on his way. A few weeks later, he passed by the spot again. Both scholars had starved, having been so involved in their argument they forgot to eat, and the mudcrabs were making a meal of them. 'Sometimes,' thought Saint Delyn, 'it is best to let mudcrabs be mudcrabs.' In other words," Ervesa said, dropping out of her story-telling cadence, "it is best not to try too hard to understand some things, because doing so can only lead to madness, obsession, and having your corpse eaten by mudcrabs."

"That seems a little complicated." And a bit more grotesque than I was used to parables being, for that matter. "I prefer to say that everyone else has been brainwashed, or possibly possessed by Sheogorath, in order to find such an unhygienic, ridiculous activity appealing. Even if you take out the fruit. I mean, this entire place," I gestured around me. "An entire industry devoted to, to sticking body parts into other people's orifices or vice versa. I just don't understand how so many people would decide it's so important without Daedra and their sense of humour being involved somewhere."

I peered at Ervesa, curious about how she would react to this. Although I consider this very sound and logical reasoning, it gets me more "raised by maladjusted wolves" looks and even otherwise rare "I think you ought to be marooned on a deserted island on the off-chance that this is contagious" looks than anything else - something which I think goes to show how sadly widespread Daedric brainwashing is these days. Even Ingerte a-

Well, Ervesa had been surprisingly tolerant so far, so I wondered how the statement that usually made even otherwise tolerant people wonder out loud exactly how I'd survived to my current age without accidentally inciting someone to murder would work on her.

She was quiet for a long moment, staring into the candleflame. "Honestly, I don't understand it either. As I said: mudcrabs. You may not understand why they're doing what they're doing but it's best just to leave them to it. I do have to say that you're the first person I've ever met who shares that opinion." She met my eyes with a wry grin. "All of my fellow trainees thought I was crazy. It's good to know I'm not the only one."

"Brainwashing," I said sagely, but I felt my cheeks stretch into a smile in spite of myself. "Us paltry few who haven't fallen victim to it have to stick together."

We shared a moment of connection, a moment of being the only two people with sense in a world that considered the greatest possible pleasure to involve bodily fluids. It was broken by loud... noises coming from the next room, which goes to show that whichever Daedric Prince is at fault for this has a fine-tuned sense of irony.

*****

Next

which goes to show that whichever Daedric Prince is at fault for this has a fine-tuned sense of irony.

Sanguine, my child!

This was a very nice moment between our knight in shining chitin armor and our alchemist in exile. It was great to see them bond over a not-entirely-honest game of cards with some not-entirely-stomachable illustrations. I particularly enjoyed that little fable of St. Delyn and the Mudcrab Scholars. I could definitely see that coming up somewhere in Morrowind.

It's good to know you're not alone in the universe.

It says something about the way things were going that I was entirely unsurprised when the cards Ervesa came back with some minutes later had very... creative illustrations.

Oh no! The situation becomes even more uncomfortable. At least Adryn found some comfort in a friend with an equal reluctance to engage in fluid exchange. I loved the whole out-cheating each other game and the conversation that went along with it.

As we so often say on the vets' forum:

BRAIN BLEACH!! I bet Adryn would love some right about now!

Reading! And laughing and cheering.

Chapter 1

As always, the personality you add give to “minor” characters adds tremendously to your story. In Chapter 1, Darvame the strider driver comes beautifully to life.

The description of the Foyada at sunset was wonderful- and shows that perhaps there is more of Vvarenfell in Adryn than even she knows. And that is confirmed by her touching of the Balmora banner- one of those “small” moments that has HUGE narrative value.





Chapter 2

Adryn’s reaction to the “challenge” of what was in the tea was a nice insight into her character.

The South Wall scene was a treat and provides more hints to Adryn’s past, as well. Her reaction to Caius’ appraisal and his blunt welcome are just the kind of writing we have come to love.

Equally enjoyable was her assessment of her chances in the Mages Guild.

The in media res argument between Ajira and Galbedir was perfectly done, giving us a feeling of an argument that has been brewing for some time.

Your variation on Ajira’s starting quests is a welcome change, as is the slow reveal of WHY the Khajiit is not anxious to go “out” on her own in Vvardenfell, especially down to the south. It was also one of those head-slap “why did I never think of that” moments. Finally, having Adryn actually STUDY the mushrooms, rather than the in-game “go fetch” mission is far more satisfying. Wonderfully done!



OOPS!






A long quote I know- but the whole of it is needed to get the exact “Adryn flavor”.



And then- the above. Simply inspiring and sad and wonderful.







And 3 more perfectly "Adryn" moments in the story!

Oh hell did I laugh at this... ...

Damned funny...Brilliant...

Loved the parable, the playing cards...All the...Discomfort...

Fuuunnie!!... ...

Nice one!... ...

The continued discussion/friendly rivalry between Ajira and Adryn is a treasure.

"Merrylice?" Glad I had set my tea aside before reading THAT bit!

As to the "gossiping and experimenting"- those are part of what MAKE this story sing. It is relatively simple to stick with the plot lines within the game (*cough* Story of Trey *cough*). It is quite another matter and much better when the writer goes her own way, giving her characters freedom and personality.

You also cleverly remind us that prison is not the place to stay in good condition for adventuring.



On the other hand- allowing individual body parts to have freedom and personality probably IS a bad idea.



And Adryn meets the first of the "friendly pilgrims." It is a tribute to her restraint that said pilgrim did not end up in a battered heap beside the trail. Or perhaps it is simply another sign of her lack of conditioning....



The introduction to the fact of slavery on Morrowind was handled perfectly.

To note all the "good parts" from the Humble Pilgrim and Frantic Bosmer sections would require copying and pasting the whole chapter.

Well- OK- have to include THIS one:



And THIS one:



And one more:



Ervesa is priceless- as is the entire time she and Adryn are together- at DESELE'S! The mind reels. And your description of their card game was an instant favorite.

Er. I am really, really sorry about the delay - real life and sudden interest switches joining forces and ambushing me, I'm afraid, and I haven't been able to spare a thought for poor neglected Adryn for a while. I swear it's the month of November conspiring against me somehow. Every year I tell myself "okay, so I won't do NaNo but I'll at least try to write more!" and every year I manage to produce nothing at all. I thought that a year where I was writing steadily for several months before would go better, but... November hates me, guys. It's the only explanation.

I sadly can't guarantee I'll be able to regularly update from now on, either - I'm still pretty busy, I need to ease myself back into writing regularly and I don't have as much of a buffer as I'd like (I've written most of chapter 5 and a good-sized chunk of 7, and you may notice the obvious issue here.) However, I at least want to finish off chapter 4 before I disappear into nothingness again!

@Everyone - thank you for reviewing! it really means a lot to me

@Trey - I find myself vindicated that you've picked out some of the scenes I was most proud of when I wrote them as your favourites! And that you enjoy the various fleshing outs and intercharacter relationships, because those are so fun to write and will probably form the backbone of this story.

@McBadgere - I'm glad you're enjoying it! Adryn most definitely isn't, but then again she's funny when suffering. XD

@HER - ah, you caught me - after the story is over, Adryn becomes Tamriel's first supplier of brain bleach, having been forced by necessity to invent it during her travels...

@Grits - glad you enjoyed! And the cheating convo will continue here.

@Thomas Kaira - I'm glad you liked the fable, because that was one of the things I really struggled with writing!

Previous

*****

Chapter 4, final part

I looked back down at the cards. "So... who won?"

Ervesa shrugged. "I think we can call it a tie."

"Fair enough." I wasn't going to argue. "Who taught you how to cheat, anyway? I mean, you're good. I barely noticed you slipping those aces up your sleeve."

"Not good enough, or else you wouldn't have." Ervesa grinned wryly. "As for who taught me - Tidros Indaram, one of my training masters at Molag Mar."

I blinked. This made two floating religious knight-bards that cheated at cards. "Look, I don't know much about your order, but... isn't that a bit unusual? After all," I continued when Ervesa just looked confused, "you were talking earlier about emulating your god..."

"Exactly," Ervesa interrupted, and it was my turn to look confused. "That's why we do it."

Wait.

Wait, I couldn't possibly have heard that correctly.

"Your god cheats at cards?"

"Well, I suppose-"

"Your god cheats at cards?"

I tried to imagine any of the gods I'd grown up hearing about, the Nine or the Nordic pantheon, cheating at cards. This resulted in the mental image of Alduin the great dragon who destroyed the world before time, Kynareth the Goddess of Air, and Talos who was Tiber Septim who conquered all of Tamriel and ascended to godhood... sitting around a table in a tavern playing cards, with Alduin trying to hide an ace between his scales because he didn't have any sleeves (being a giant, world-eating dragon), Kynareth using her powers over wind to blow the cards into the order she wanted when dealing, and Talos simply telling the others that his seven of staves was actually an ace and daring them to object. This in turn resulted in me pondering whether I might have accidentally had any skooma at any point that day without realising, because I had no idea how to explain what was going through my head without drugs coming into the picture somewhere.

"Well, it's a little more complicated than that," Ervesa said. "Do you want to hear the story?"

"Wild kagouti couldn't keep me from finding out the story behind this," I responded.

"All right then. Once, Vivec encountered a group of Dwemer near Falasmaryon..."

What followed was a story involving Vivec, an annoying braggart of a Dwemer who claimed his machine could predict anything that would ever happen, and Vivec talking him into a card game with high stakes. "The other Dwemer told him to be careful, for they knew Vivec was filled with trickery and bore them no love," Ervesa said, showing more pride at the description of her god as 'filled with trickery' than I would have expected. If you closed your eyes and ignored the accent, you could almost imagine she was a Nord talking about Shor. "But Vivec said, 'why, do you not trust your machine? If it truly does what you say, you would be able to tell how the cards will fall even now, and there is no risk,' and he agreed to the game.

"Then as they were playing, Vivec changed the cards so they fell to his favour. The Dwemer realised this and became furious. Yet, Vivec said, if the machine were truly able to predict anything, he would have known this would happen. So the fact that Vivec was winning demonstrated his lie."

"And then what happened?" I asked when she paused.

"The other Dwemer, being a folk that did not prize loyalty, agreed with Vivec's assessment. Thus Vivec's opponent was cast out for his failure and his machine melted down as useless, and thus the land around Falasmaryon came to belong to the Dunmer. Some people say one can still hear the spirit of the bested Dwemer there on dark nights, railing against Vivec's cunning, but," Ervesa shrugged, "Falasmaryon lies deep in the Ashlands and the wind howling through the foyada can lead even the bravest of mer to imagine things."

"That was a good story," I said once it was clear Ervesa had finished. "Do you know any more?" It was a good distraction from our environment - and over the course of the day I'd found myself honestly curious. Ervesa had made a generally good impression on me so far, making me wonder about the god that she was so dedicated to.

"What, weren't you listening to me earlier?" She frowned at me until I wondered whether I ought to be apologising for forgetting something (but what?), then her face broke into a grin. "One of the things we Armigers are dedicated to is poetry and prose. In other words," she winked, "I know very many such stories! I can think of several which I think you might like. But first..."

"First?"

"How much do you know about the Tribunal Temple?" Ervesa asked.

"Very little," I admitted. Then, struck by the intensity of her gaze, I added, "look, if this is some attempt at conversion..."

"No, no! Well..." Ervesa looked a little sheepish, "not really? It just seems to me as if you might be interested in learning more about us. We're not a very missionary sort of people!" she added hastily. "Not like the Cult. But a lot of outlanders, you know, they come to Morrowind and," she spread her hands, "they know nothing about us. Just rumours about savage rituals and heathen worship and," a dark look spread on her face and she almost spat the next word, "necromancy, of all the dreadful blasphemies. And they never bother to learn more. I hear outlanders who've lived in Morrowind decades repeating the same old lies about our beliefs and customs."

"So..." I asked warily, "you're just encouraging me to learn about your religion?" True, I'd been contemplating this myself, but I find it pays to be careful appearing too religiously interested when it comes to clergy and other zealots. You may think you're just passing the time while taking advantage of the healing services but then they get their claws in you and suddenly you find yourself swearing eternal loyalty to Mehrunes Dagon via human sacrifice - I've heard the stories, you know! A measure of reluctance and skepticism is essential when it comes to these things.

She nodded. "Exactly. If you decide to join the Temple afterwards, excellent, but even if you don't at least you'll know what we're about. And I don't mean you should go straight on a pilgrimage or anything. A good friend of mine is at the Balmora Temple - Llarara Omayn, is her name - and she sells books and tracts. I know there's one common one that's aimed at outsiders like you but I don't recall the name... other than that, Saryoni's Sermons is a very popular collection, Cantatas of Vivec is a favourite of mine, Doors of the Spirit is one I recommend to anyone who's heard those slanderous rumours that we engage in necromancy..."

My shoulders relaxed. Books, I could deal with books. I could deal with books very well indeed, considering that I'd been contemplating doing bedtime reading about kagouti mating habits earlier and as far as I was concerned, everything you needed to know about those could be summed up in two words: Stay. Away. "All right-" I paused to yawn, "I'll keep those in mind."

Ervesa smiled at me. My cheeks grew hot, which was definitely, absolutely, emphatically just because of the room being quite warm by now. "Wonderful! Now, I think I've remembered a story you'll enjoy."

"Go on," I said.

As she started talking, I let myself fall backwards into my mountain of pillows. The noise from next door was still audible, but my limbs felt like lead and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. Small wonder; I had used that today after all, and one rejuvenating potion was definitely not enough to get rid of the effects.

The last thing I remembered was Ervesa's face lit by flickering candlelight and her voice rising and falling rhythmically, lulling me to sleep.

*****

End of chapter. (And one day I will finish one not via Adryn falling asleep or otherwise losing consciousness. One day!)

Next

What a wonderful story about the god Vivec!

Goes to show that the Dunmer do possess a wry sense of humor!

I hear you about the troublesome order of things. I’ve been wrestling with part of my story that probably won’t get posted until 2013 at this rate, while the next section languishes unwritten. Good thing it’s all for fun, or it could be torture!!

“…Talos simply telling the others that his seven of staves was actually an ace and daring them to object.”

I love Adryn’s vision of the godly card game. I can just see Talos slapping his seven on the table and glaring around at the other gods.

I’m glad you left Adryn in a comfortable spot amongst the pillows. She’s been through a fairly stressful evening with the naughty cards, chorus of delight through the wall, and the proximity of the intensely interesting Ervesa. I’m glad she could finally relax!

What a story you are weaving here! This is Awesome! Your character development is amazing, but even beyond that is your ability to create scenes that are so dynamic they are easily visualized by the reader! My favorite scene in this chapter is Adryn's visualizing the card game - I was rolling at her detailed imagination !! Absolutely Awesome write, you really need to forget Nano and keep writing this story !!!!!!!!!

I have laughed until I fell out of my chair over this one. What a story!!!! Please do keep going. I KNOW how the whole November/December thing works, believe me, so will wait patiently for the phase to pass. But come January I will be hot on your heels Kaz, and if necessary will pull out the balding spell I created for Treydog. You have too many loyal followers here to let this one go.

Adryn is a wonderful, full spectrum character and we all want to see what happens next with her!!!

@All: Thank you very much for reviewing! Have another update before my schedule gets thrown into a mess by going home for Christmas.

@HER - Now, now, don't forget that Ervesa isn't an Ordinator! They've probably excised that story from their collective memories as it does not quite befit the... gravitas and dignity... of a god. I'd always imagined the Armigers as having more of a sense of humour! After all, their idea of an honourable duel appears to be a poetic riddling contest...

@Grits - ouch, that's worse than me! At least if I manage to stick around I should reach the section that's captured my imagination in the next few months. Although I do keep being assaulted by ideas for Sleeper in the Cave, Solstheim version, which definitely takes place after the MQ, which means that by the time I actually reach that point in the fic I will probably be eighty. And I'm glad you liked the card game! I thought for a while to figure out how Talos would cheat.

@mALX - wow, thank you! *blushes* And I'm glad you liked the godly card game, it was definitely my personal highlight of this section.

@Athynae - thank you!! I'm glad you're enjoying it. And eep, it looks like I'd better keep writing then... I like my hair. ;_; (In all seriousness, I will be vanishing from time to time, I'll just keep coming back. You can't get rid of me that easily!)

Chapter 5: 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 5.8

Last chapter, Adryn went out flower-picking and ran into multiple obstacles... culminating in being attacked by kagouti, rescued by a Buoyant Armiger named Ervesa, accidentally teleporting to Suran instead of Balmora and finally needing to spend the night in Desele's House of Earthly Delights because there was nowhere else available. She hopes this day will go better than the last.

Chapter 5.1

*****

This time, when I woke from my nightmare (skin writhing as though there are a thousand worms just beneath it, the creaking as the bones are stretched to their utmost limit-) I didn't bolt upright. Instead, I just scowled at the ceiling - it was the third Oblivion-damned night in a row, if these were really location-induced somehow I'd end up trying to swim to the mainland before the week was out - then rolled over and waited for sleep to come again. The blankets were warm, by the dim twilight outside it was very, very early morning, the sounds of... activity... from next door had abated, I could hear even breathing from Ervesa's side of the room and I was so very tired...

There is fire everywhere. To the right a city is burning, to the left a forest is alight, ahead two armies are battling, their fireballs almost invisible against the glare of the setting sun, behind -

Don't look back. In the name of every single god ever worshipped, don't look back.

Someone's larger hand is clutching my small one, meant to be protective but holding me fast. "Come on!" I shout, pulling at it. The sound almost goes under in the screaming and roar of flames and- other noises. "It's not safe here! We have to keep moving!"

Now the scenery has shifted - the sun at my left, to my right the sea and a battle of two armadas. And-

The ground begins to tremble.

It is coming.

"We have to run now!" My companion still isn't moving. Despite myself, I turn back to look at her.

The stench hits me first - rot mixed with burning flesh, so strong it makes me gag. Maggots crawl over her forehead, the skin of her cheeks already peeling off to expose decaying muscle. There is a crunching noise as the bare bones I am holding snap, the tendons holding the skeletal hand together ripping under the pressure of my fingers. They say corpses stare but hers does not; her eyes are two pits of charcoal, burned clear out of her face, and-

Behind her-

It seemed that my old nightmares weren't just going to lie down and take this intrusion into their territory quietly, that they were in fact launching a counter-campaign. I lay in bed and tried to aim the thought if you don't stop this I am going to bash my head in with a rock just so I can sleep at my subconscious.

Perhaps it worked, perhaps my various nightmares had just exhausted themselves with infighting - this time, when I fell back asleep it was dreamless. When I woke next, it was daylight outside, there was rain spattering the window and Ervesa was gone.

I yawned, sat up and stretched. My back was sore - all the fluffy blankets in the world don't quite make up for lacking a mattress - but it wasn't too bad and I'd certainly slept in worse circumstances.

I'd had to sleep in my clothes as I hadn't taken my new nightclothes with me, but smoothing them down got out the worst of the wrinkles and I could change when I got to the Mages' Guild. (If I ever got to the Mages' Guild. After yesterday, I wouldn't be surprised if some god was trying to keep me away from the place. If there was an attack of massed kagouti or bandits or Daedra on the path back, I would be totally unsurprised - I vowed to myself to have my Firebite spell ready just in case.) Reflexively, I looked around for my cloak, then had to remind myself that I didn't actually own one at the moment and that this land had a very balmy climate. What can I say, old habits die hard.

The main room looked entirely different when I got downstairs. Gone were the patrons, the dancers, the lurid lighting. The only person in the place was the owner - Helviane, Ervesa had called her - who was wiping down the counter with a rag. I noted with relief that she was a bit... more warmly dressed, shall we say, than she'd been the day before.

"Up, are you?" she asked me, then continued without waiting for an answer (although really, what was she expecting me to say, "no"?). "Your Buoyant Armiger friend left at first light. Paid for the room and left you this." She pushed a ten-drake coin my way. "Said it was for the strider back to Balmora, and that she was sorry for just leaving but that she had urgent business and didn't want to wake you." By her smirk, I knew exactly how Helviane had taken 'didn't want to wake you', and wished silently that Ervesa had spent a little more thought on her word choice. "I'm Helviane Desele, by the way, didn't catch your name yesterday. And don't look like that, I don't bite." She paused and then winked. "Unless you're paying me, that is."

"Um." It felt as if my tongue had knotted itself overnight. "Adryn. And not biting me is perfectly fine, really, no need to change that, I, I like being unbitten-" I flushed deep purple as Helviane laughed.

"Ah, kids," she said, shaking her head. "Well, Adryn, you're in luck - Folsi should be back from her morning trip to Vivec in a bit, and the next destination is Balmora. If you'd missed that, you'd have had to wait until the afternoon."

"In that case, I'd better get going," I said quickly. At the moment, I really just wanted to get back to Balmora as quickly as possible and forget most of the last day had ever happened. "Wouldn't want to miss it. Er-" some long-forgotten part of my mind that had once learned this strange thing called manners prodded me, "thank you for letting us stay last night."

Helviane shrugged. "Well, you looked miserable enough I couldn't in good conscience send you back onto the streets. Although I do hope those merchants get over whatever terrifying shadows and stories are keeping them in town this time. Good business it may be for me, but bad for trade. Besides, they're getting antsy. Ashumanu's been talking about having to break up fistfights, and I've had to ban one from the premises already for trying to take out his frustrations on one of my girls."

"Er-"

Helviane continued without even looking at me - not that I minded that part so much, given the way she was scowling at the table as if it had insulted her, ah, professional assets. (Well, for all I knew it had - after the Bed I wouldn't be too surprised at anything the furniture here got up to.) "In the meantime, rumour has it there's a murderer loose in Vivec but is anyone afraid of travelling there? Hardly! And now I have those damn Fighter thugs on my back again. 'Debt money' - what debt do they think I owe them, pray tell? Protection rackets, I tell you - I thought the whole point of an Imperial guild was supposed to be that it wasn't a crime syndicate-"

It sounded as if the woman had forgotten that I had any existence bar being a listening ear - in particular, that I was trying to make the strider. It also sounded as if now that she'd got going she wasn't going to be stopping for a while. So I just waved at her and made my way to the door.

When I reached it, I stared outside in resignation. Up until today the weather had been good enough - cloudy, true, but dry and warm enough to be comfortable - but from the amount and type of vegetation and the swamps near the coast I'd deduced that this must be a relatively wet climate. As a result, the pouring rain didn't come as much of a surprise.

I still didn't want to go out in it, though.

Then again, I reminded myself, I was currently standing in a brothel. In comparison, a little water doesn't seem nearly as bad anymore. Refreshing. One might even say cleansing. And maybe, in a sense, lucky, because with the weather the way it was there would be fewer people around to see me leaving said brothel who might get the wrong impression.

I dashed out into the rain.

*****

Next

Adryn's nightmares are worrisome coming from a TES world - always a portent for something bad. The rest of the chapter was an awesome display of your ability to create an unforgetable character in a few short paragraphs! Between the noisy neighbors in the next room and Helviane Desele's revealing chatter (along with Adryn's inner dialogue) you had me rolling !! Awesome Write !!

Nice edition to Adryn's story, I am enjoying this tremendously, watching this character take shape and wondering what in Oblivion could happen next.

So glad to hear that you will not be gotten rid of so with that said I will attempt to be as patient as possible, for me that is a feat, but I will try. (Holding on to the Balding Spell tightly so it doesn't accidentally slip).

Would be nice if I had some good reading over the holidays....just sayin....

Adryn's trademark dry humor continues to delight.

I do hope our favorite floating holy-knight returns some day. She sounds like a good friend for a hopelessly out-of-her-element ex-thief to have. But I would suggest she keep an eye to Riften over the course of her adventures if an when the time comes when the rope finally snaps and Adryn wants nothing more than to leave and get back to Skyrim. Good job opportunities for a woman of her profession, and its close to the border.

But in the meantime, the priority is a change of clothes. As our favorite Bosmer Bowgirl would advise, to adventure in wrinkled clothing is just as bad as forgetting your bow.

Giving you an update so Athynae has something to read over the holidays And a long installment since I have no idea when I'll be able to update next.

@mALX - Adryn's nightmares are definitely meaningful, but I shall say no more... I'm very happy you liked Helviane! I wanted to present her as a little more three-dimensional than "woman who owns a brothel, omg" but didn't have much space to do it in, so I'm glad it worked for you!

@Athynae - I'm glad you're still enjoying, and am sure that some of the things Adryn and co. have in store (or rather, things I have in store for them) will live up to your expectations *rubs hands together in evil glee*. Just, er, hold off on that balding spell!

@Thomas Kaira - I think I can safely say Ervesa will be returning! Honestly, she barrelled her way into the story with such force that there's no way I could send her off with just one appearance. Riften, now, might be a good place for Adryn (alas, I wouldn't know as I haven't played Skyrim) but she has her own reasons for not wanting to return there which will become clear... er... eventually.

Speaking of which, I need to whine for a moment: when I was working out the rough shape of Adryn's backstory a few years ago, I first considered having her spend a long time in Cyrodiil but opted against it. Why? Because my computer could barely manage Morrowind (at the moment, I'm not sure whether it *can* manage Morrowind) and Oblivion was totally out of the question, and so I'd have real trouble getting Adryn's history to mesh with what we'd learn about Cyrodiil in that. So I decided to plonk her into a place where no one had any more than a bit of lore as info and I could make things up to my heart's content. Namely, Skyrim!

...I sometimes get the feeling Bethesda is mocking me.

But anyway!

Previous

Chapter 5.2

Last installment, Adryn had a sequence of nightmares, then chatted with Helviane Desele and is now off to get the silt strider back to Balmora.

*****

Some perfect, amazing, wonderful person who I was prepared to compose love letters to had come up with the idea of extending an oiled awning on one side of the silt strider platform to allow waiting passengers to wait dry. I ducked under it, shaking drops of water from my hair. The platform hadn't been far away from Desele's and shouldn't have taken much time to reach... unless, that is, the person trying to reach it was a total stranger to the city with the approximate sense of direction of a drugged chicken. Let's just say that I was quite damp by the time I found the place.

"Oh, hello there! Going to Balmora too?"

"Hello," I sheepishly greeted the Breton woman I'd been ignoring completely in order to revel in dryness. She was about my age and small for a Breton, with dancing eyes, short brown hair and wearing some sort of leather armour. She was also munching on something that made my stomach remind me that the only thing it had had all of yesterday was breakfast and some kagouti 'meat'. (I use the term loosely.)

I suddenly remembered I hadn't answered her question yet. "Yes, I'm going back to Balmora - I just joined the Mages' Guild there," I explained. I was absolutely not showing off, I told myself. It was relevant information.

"Really? I just joined the Fighter's Guild." At least there were two of us bragging now. "I'm a scout, you see. My name's Fasile."

"I'm Adryn," I responded. I was going to continue, but was interrupted by my stomach deciding to make its general state of emptiness and displeasure at that audible. I blushed.

"Here, take some." Fasile gestured at an open pouch at her side, out of which drifted a lovely smell.

"Oh no, I couldn't possibly..." my protest was very weak.

Fasile shook her head, grinning. "I got breakfast to take with me at the tradehouse, and Ashumanu, the owner, gave me far too much - I could never eat all this myself."

"Well, in that case..."

The pouch contained rolls with scrib jelly, which I was very proud at myself for being able to identify. They didn't taste quite as good as the ones I'd had yesterday - the cook here wasn't as dab a hand with the spices as Dulnea - but were fresh out of the oven, and offset nicely by the sweetness of the scrib jelly.

"A scout?" I asked as we chewed. "What does a scout do for the Fighter's Guild?" I'd thought Fighter's Guild members ran more along the lines of big brawny hulking fighters who were confused by words more than two syllables long. Scouts didn't fit into the picture.

"Well, the guild takes a lot of escort and protection quests - travellers hire us to protect them from bandits or the wildlife, people exploring ruins and caves hire us as back-up, that sort of thing. Other times we're asked to hunt down criminals who are trying to hide in the wilderness. Having someone who knows the area and can set up camp and hunt for food in the wild can be very important."

I nodded. "That makes a lot of sense. So what brings you to Suran?"

"Well, Eydis Fire-Eye, she's head of the Balmora guild, she asked me to drop off a message. But it was a good opportunity because I'd be a bad scout if I didn't know a lot about different regions, and I've never been to this area before," Fasile explained. "I mean, imagine what would happen if someone asked to escort them to Suran, or to Marandus, or to the Vandus tomb, and I got them lost? I wouldn't dare call myself a scout after that." She shuddered. "Oh, but, I also picked up something amazing at the shops here! One of the traders had a glass dagger for sale, see?"

I squinted at the weapon she held out to me. There is a euphemism for when something is in particularly bad shape, saying that it 'has seen better days'. This dagger, now, had probably seen better centuries. The hilt seemed to be in the process of dissolving, contrary to the laws of physics, and even from a distance I could tell that with that edge the weapon probably ought to be classified as a blunt instrument, as it wouldn't make a difference whether you hit an enemy with the flat side or the "sharp". I could still tell that somewhere underneath all the chips, scratches, and what looked like old blood that hadn't been cleaned off in so long it might actually have become one with the weapon, the blade was made of some reflective greenish material - wait, had she called it glass? Who in their right mind would make weapons out of glass?

Fasile stared at me for a moment after I voiced this opinion, then laughed. "Oh right, you must be new to Morrowind. This isn't ordinary glass. Volcanic glass is one of the hardest materials known to man and mer, and durable enough that it makes excellent weapons. If you want better, you'd be looking into ebony or Daedric... which is why a glass dagger usually costs around forty septims." Four thousand drakes? I whistled and stared at the weapon with new eyes. "But because it's in such bad shape," understatement of the year, "and because it's really hard to repair glass weapons the trader let me have it for much less!" The girl bounced. And I do literally mean bounced. I paused in the process of reaching for a new roll to blink at her - this was the first time I'd ever seen that outside of literature.

I spotted a flaw in her plan. "But... if it's so hard to repair, will you be able to?"

"Oh, I'll take it to old Wayn. He's the smith at the guild - bit of a stick-in-the-mud but very good at what he does. I'm sure he'll be able to fix it for me." Fasile smiled dreamily - I could almost read the words 'and then I'll have a glass dagger of my very own!' above her head - then blinked as though something had just occurred to her. "But what about you? What brought you to Suran?"

"I was looking for ingredients," I said, ruefully thinking of my vials which currently all contained that precious, rare, difficult to harvest ingredient known as air. "I'm an alchemist, one of two at the guild, and our guild mistress asked us to study some of the flowers that grow near Lake Amaya. I had a few... misadventures, and ended up staying the night here."

"That's funny, I don't remember seeing you at the tradehouse last night..."

I decided to take this as an opportunity to practice my poker face. "We must have just missed each other, I'm sure."

"I suppose. Did you at least manage to get the flowers?"

"No," I moaned. "All I got from yesterday were near-death experiences and this map here." I wiped my hands on my trousers and fished the damnable thing out of my pack. "I suppose it's useful to have one, but when you were expecting a reward that's a little, shall we say, shinier and more metallic..."

"Oh, yes," Fasile clucked sympathetically. "Wayn told me it's why the guild insists on a proprely negotiated contract before accepting any missions, to avoid this kind of thing." Yes, thank you for telling me now. "Although... wait, can I see that map for a moment?"

I handed it over, puzzled. Fasile took it, stared at it, then spoke a word I didn't quite understand. To my amazement, a glowing dot appeared on the map - I leaned over and saw that it was just at Suran.

"Is that..." I was stunned.

"It's enchanted with a location spell. Some Telvanni worked it out, I hear. They're really expensive - I've seen them selling for almost five septims! I've been thinking of saving up for one." She eyed the map hungrily while I tried to incorporate this new fact into my worldview.

"So when I thought about throwing it away..."

"...it would have been very, very stupid, yes. Whoever gave this to you must have really liked you."

I giggled. It may have sounded slightly hysterical. "No, I... doubt that. I really, really doubt that. I think it's more likely she just didn't know and thought it was a cheap copy off the streets. I mean," I paused for dramatic effect, "when I met her she was holding it upside-down."

We looked at each other and burst into laughter.

"Ahoy the strider!" A new voice, this one, and - to my surprise - unmistakeably tinged with the accent of Wayrest.

I was even more surprised when the owner of the new voice turned out to be a dark- a Dunmer. Given the accent, I'd been expecting a Breton... and wasn't that hypocritical of me, given the amount of people who, upon hearing me open my mouth, probably expected some fur-clad axe-wielding Nord!

But my ruminations on accents and their owners, who are not always quite what you expect, were interrupted when I noticed that the newcomer was surrounded by a glowing purple bubble of energy - one that the raindrops hit and then bounced off.

I may have drooled. If so, it was obviously to do with being a Mages' Guild member confronted with a type of magic I didn't know (a shield spell, something hidden in the dim mists of memory nudged me), about the passionate search for magic-related knowledge of all kinds, and nothing whatsoever to do with a way to stay dry.

"Oh, hi Eddie!" Fasile greeted as she handed the map back (with noticeable reluctance.) Apparently she knew him. "That's a neat trick. So did you get back without getting lost again?"

I hid a grin as 'Eddie', who'd strolled under the awning puffed up with his own cleverness, deflated. "Ah, of course not, I would never..."

"I met him yesterday," Fasile explained to me over his protests. "Said he was looking for Sulipund, but he was going the wrong way, was about to enter an ancestral tomb," a dark expression crossed her face, "and had already managed to fall into Lake Nabia twice. I ended up escorting him there, but I couldn't take him back to Suran and I was worried he'd manage to end up at the Ghostfence or eaten by Daedra at Bal Ur."

It's funny how sometimes, you can read "please let the earth swallow me right now" on people's faces clearer than if they'd spoken out loud.

As I was still smarting from my various misadventures yesterday, I was more sympathetic than I might have been otherwise. So he fell into the lake twice? At least he hadn’t almost been killed in a very embarrassing way by a rampaging kagouti. "Well, these things happen, especially when you’re not an experienced scout." I smiled encouragingly. "My name’s Adryn, by the way."

"Ah! Your sympathy is a salve to my poor wounded soul, o fair flower of beauteousness." He bowed with a flourish. "Edd Theman is your humble servant."

My sympathy vanished like a puff of hot air in a Haafingar blizzard.

"I think you must be confused. The bushes are over there, you see. At least, I assume that since you were talking to a 'fair flower of beauteousness' you were trying to address the local plant life, given that I told you my name just now."

"Ah, but such a masculine name hardly suits a gorgeous orchid in this arid wasteland such as yourself-"

"Excuse me?"

His shield spell chose that moment to wink out of existence.

Fasile, probably sensing that there would be violence done in a few moments, interrupted. "Look! There’s the strider."

*****

Notes: Some years after I'd started writing this story, at which point Adryn had firmly cemented herself in my mind, I realised that Adryn is a male Dunmer name. Think Athyn Sarethi - I checked all the lists, and all NPCs with names ending in -yn (of whom they are quite a few) are male. Women have names ending in -yno, -yna, -yni, -yne... you get the picture. Adryn flatly refused to become Adryne, and I worked out a way to make that doable, but this is where Eddie's surprise at her "masculine" name is coming from.

Also, I swore I wouldn't give in on currency, that I'd stick with what we're given in-game, but I've got so used to the "septim = 100 drakes" from various stories (e.g. Teresa!) that it actually threw me when I reread my own story. So I'm surrendering and using it too... and I'm going to go back and edit previous entries where I was using the two interchangeably to be in line with this when I have time.

Next

To be fair, Skyrim does take place 206 years after the events of Morrowind, so you still get to take some leeway. Besides, I'm not very satisfied with a few of the things in Bethesda's rendition of Skyrim (Dawnstar, for example).

Given that Morrowind also seems to get Drake and Septim confused a lot, I really can't blame you for going the way you did the first couple of times. But, I do agree with 'Rosa's idea of Imperial currency, too. (Speaking of which, if Ulfric is trying to secede from the Empire, why are Stormcloak territories still accepting Imperial mint coin?)

Oh, and who cares about the name? Elven names in The Elder Scrolls are so asinine I've given up trying to understand the conventions and gender specifics. I just name my elves whatever I want, so don't you go feeling ashamed of giving your heroine a masculine name. Because for all I care, it's not masculine anymore.

Love the magic map and the fun application for a shield spell. I'm glad Fasile is there, otherwise it could be a long ride with Awkward Eddie.

@TK - If anyone calls me out on inaccuracy in my Skyrim portrayal, I'll definitely use the "it's been 200 years!" excuse... although there's a limit to that, e.g. if I get the geography wrong. Out of curiosity, what's wrong with Dawnstar?

And re: names: What I like about the TES names is that the names for the different races are distinct enough that you can immediatey tell what belongs to what (well, Redguards seem a bit diverse). That said, I get the impression they had a bunch of allowed syllables and a random generator, and some of the races had fewer than others (see also: Altmer names), which makes creating new ones tricky.

@Grits - glad you liked - I like to consider what practical uses various spells have outside of combat.

Last time:

Waiting for the strider, Adryn met a scout from the Fighter's Guild, learned her map was not as useless as thought, then ran into Fast Eddie whose idea of suitable conversation was... not the same as hers. This continues. Adryn would like you to know she is suffering.

Chapter 5.3

*****

The journey back to Balmora was something of a trial, thanks to Edd "call me Fast Eddie" Theman and his idea of what counted as suitable conversation.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't always mind flirting, provided it's in the right time and place and - most importantly - everyone involved knows that it's just for fun and nothing is actually going to happen. If that last condition isn't fulfilled I get to wrack my brains as to how to get it through to the person in question that the only way what they have in mind would be less likely to occur would be if one or both of us were dead. In my experience, this is something that is surprisingly difficult to get through men's heads. A few will back off gracefully, but many of them will react as though you're speaking Aldmeris, and some of them will take you pouring the boiling hot potion of feebleness you were working on over their heads while screaming at them to get out as a sign that "she must really like me!". Eddie was definitely, definitely of the last sort, even though I sadly didn't have any feebleness potions at hand.

Furthermore, he was also of the sort that thinks your eyeballs are located on your chest - particularly egregious as I have been reliably informed that it takes several minutes' concerted study to even tell that I possess one - and as far as his poetry went, it would be undeservedly flattering to call it merely 'dreadful'. I swear that at one point I heard the silt strider moaning in pain, which goes to show that even giant fleas have a greater sense of artistry than ser Theman.

Thankfully for me and my hypothetical life sentence in Imperial prison for murder via pushing someone off a giant flea, Fasile was there and we quickly allied against this threat. One remark of hers, relating his nickname to his stamina when it came to certain activities he was evidently interested in, left him sputtering and us in blessed silence for at least five minutes. As a result, although I was sorely tested I was able to hold out until Balmora without resorting to attempted murder.

I may have set a new speed record for strider disembarking; the people waiting at the strider port in Balmora certainly stared as though I had. Even so, I wasn't quite quick enough to escape Eddie's parting remark of "Look me up at the Lucky Lockup some time, my beautiful pearl!"

"Look up a portal to Oblivion!" I retorted, while resolving never to set foot into the Lucky Lockup. He ignored me.

I was still fuming a little when I stepped into the Mages' Guild after having bid a quick farewell to Fasile, enough that I had to hold back a nasty comment when I saw Marayn crouching in front of the supply chest.

"What are you doing there?" It came out a little more curt than it might have otherwise, but I managed to keep most of my temper out of my voice.

"A new shipment for the supply chest came in this morning, and I'm checking to see if that useless bureaucrat at the mainland has finally got it through his thick head that we need soul gems, not- no, it's all potions to strengthen willpower again. " Marayn slammed the chest shut with a little more force than necessary. At least I wasn't the only one in a bad mood. "As if Ajira can't whip up more than we'd ever need with wickwheat and bloat, especially now that she's got Adryn to- wait a moment." He blinked at me as if he'd only just realised I was present. "Adryn!"

Bad mood or no, I felt a flood of affection towards Marayn in that instant. At least one person on this island had managed to remember my name! "Yes?"

"Where on Nirn have you been?" He frowned. "Ajira's been out of her mind with worry since yesterday evening."

"Well, it's a long story-"

"In that case, tell me later. For now, go downstairs and tell Ajira you're still alive and in one piece so she'll stop turning the guild upside-down. She already almost poisoned someone this morning."

I squirmed guiltily. It wasn't as though I could have done anything about it, but I'd not thought at all about how Ajira might take me vanishing after she sent me on an errand. Especially when the reason she didn't go herself was because she thought it was too dangerous; she'd probably spent all day thinking something horrible had befallen me.

Well, something lethally horrible - given that I thought spending a several-hour silt strider journey in close quarters with a man who had a decidedly overinflated perception of his appeal, wit, and poetic ability certainly qualified as 'something horrible', not to mention the brothel, how could I possibly forget the brothel. And the evil fiend disguised as a pilgrim whose only purpose on Nirn was evidently to torture me. Oh, right, and I supposed almost dying probably counted as well.

Downstairs, things were quiet - it looked as if I'd arrived during the lunch break, because the only person I saw in the room were the Breton, who I'd mentally dubbed 'teleportation girl', and Ajira. The Khajiit was mixing something in a bowl, but I didn't think her mind was exactly on the task given her twitching tail and ears.

Or what she was mixing.

"You know," I said from behind her, "I'm relatively certain you don't actually want to add gravedust mixed in water to minced scamp skin. For one, I'm not sure why you'd want to make a potion that drains your magicka, but more importantly you don't want to add something mainly consisting of water to a hot liquid containing anything that ever touched a Daedra. Trust me on this." I still had the scars. Literally.

Ajira whirled around. "Friend Adryn!" Then I found myself with an armful of relieved Khajiit.

"Um. I'm sorry I worried you. There, there?" I patted her back awkwardly. What were you supposed to do in a situation like this anyway? And what was that sticky feeling on my... oh. "Could you take the stirrer out of my hair, please? I don't know what you were trying to make exactly but I'm relatively sure I don't want it on my scalp."

Ajira disentangled herself, then disentangled the spoon (which was a bit more complicated.) "Ajira was so worried! You are all right! ...you are all right, yes?" Before I could reassure Ajira that yes, I was totally fine bar mental trauma, I found myself with a potion pushed into my hands. "Drink this!"

I checked the label. Healing. "Ajira, I'm fine-"

"Drink."

I shrugged and unstoppered it - even though it wasn't necessary, I was happy to let Ajira fuss about me a little to make up for how she'd obviously worried about me.

The potion tingled going down, washing away the aches and pains I still had from yesterday. It tasted surprisingly good compared to the ones I was used to, apart from a bitter aftertaste and a dryness in my mouth.

"Mm, that was good. What was in it?"

"Saltrice and wickwheat," Ajira said. "Not only good ingredients for healing potions but also common foodstuffs, perhaps Adryn has had saltrice porridge already? But more importantly..." her expression shifted to something like I'd always imagined a scolding mother must look like. "Where have you been?"

"Um. It's a long story?"

"Then I shall finish this," Ajira cast a glance at her looming explosion in potion form, "and we shall discuss it over lunch."

*****

Notes: Ajira's explosion in the making is actually based on something I learned in chemistry lessons regarding what happens if you add water to acid, and the only reason I probably remember this is because there's a nice rhyme to go along with it in German.

Next

Thanks for the reading to keep me busy Kaz, I am enjoying it immensely!!

I am so glad I wasn't drinking my tea when I read about Fast Eddie though, I would have ruined a perfectly good monitor! I was feeling Adryn's pain on the silt strider, I have been in a similar situation once or well....I won't go there, just suffice to say I felt for her.

Keep it coming, there is still more "holiday" to fill.....

ROFL !!! Great Write !!

What's wrong with Dawnstar? For being a major Imperial port in Skyrim, why is there only one dock? And where are the Imperial fortifications, for that matter? The town is just a collection of thatch cottages with no defenses whatsoever. And I think the only thing you really need to remember geography-wise is that Winterhold is not destroyed in Adryn's time (the city collapsed into the sea when Red Mountain blew during Infernal City).

I hope Ajira doesn't blow up the entire Guild with her little experiment... it would not be healthy for Adryn's sanity.

Still your faithful- if absent- reader. I am not caught up yet, but shall fix that soonish. And that is to MY great benefit, for this story just keeps getting better.

Now for a quote-fest, beginning with the ending of Chapter 4.



That caused more than a bit of laughter on SO MANY levels. The expert weaving of Skyrim into Morrowind, the personalities that just BLAZE through the scene... and poor Adryn's already-spinning head getting sent for a few MORE rounds....



Which is NOT simply a metaphor given the circumstances of Adryn and Ervesa's meeting.



Ervesa is such a delight, and watching Adryn's reactions to her is equally delightful. Moments like the one above are one of the "whys" of reading fan-fiction. You have given a significant group in Vvardenfell so much more life and personality.



QFT!

Chapter 5

And then- wow, just... wow! What a way to start a chapter. I want to quote the ENTIRE dream, but will desist, only noting--- anyone who wants to know how to write prose that grabs the reader and DOES NOT let go- read that passage!



Been hanging around with Redguard Legionaries, have we?

And with Helviane you continue to give history and personality to the people Adryn meets.



And sometimes not just the people...

From the moment Adryn awoke to see Jiub's unlovely face, and through all her adventures since, this story has made me smile, laugh, wince with sympathy, and even want to cheer. Most of all- it has done what art is SUPPOSED to do- it has made me FEEL. Thank you so much for continuing, despite dragon attacks and all the other distractions.

@Athynae - Sorry to hear that - I've also been in a similar situation once. I couldn't resist sharing the pain with Adryn, although I did relent and give her an ally!

@mALX - thanks!

@TK - ooh, yeah, that's a problem. Reminds me of when I read in the UESP Wiki that NPCs in Balmora say the town is a centre of trade because it's on the Odai River... but there are no docks! or ships! (Modding opportunity, anyone?) And trying to figure out Vvardenfell economy is also a bit of a headache. Also, whoa, Winterhold gets destroyed? They really went all-out with that Red Mountain eruption, huh.

@treydog - ironically enough, I wrote the cards scene before Skyrim came out! I'm glad my little Skyrim references work anyway. *g* I'm glad you like Ervesa, and my treatment of the Buoyant Armigers - they've always fascinated me and I've been sad that there's not more in-game stuff to do with them, so they will get expanded in this story. And ha, you spotted my little tribute to Julian and haute XD. Thank you very much for your kind comments, your reviews always leave me smiling so hard my cheeks hurt!

Last installment, Adryn finally (!) made it back to the Balmora Mages' Guild, although she was plagued by Fast Eddie and his decidedly unwelcome flirting. She managed to prevent Ajira from accidentally blowing herself up with a potion. Now, it's time to catch up with her friend over lunch.

Chapter 5.4

*****

The weather had cleared up, so we got "rat-inna-bun" - a kind of meat wrapped in dough roasted over a fire where I could only hope the name wasn't meant literally - from a street vendor, then I followed Ajira to her favourite spot outside. It turned out to be sitting on the northern wall where it passed over the river.

Although the wall was quite low at that point it still wasn't somewhere I'd take my hypothetical old grandmother, since we had to clamber to get onto it and it was narrow enough that even sitting on it required some dexterity and sense of balance. Thankfully, neither of those things had ever been a problem for me - another thing I could thank my birth-sign for - and I could tell why Ajira liked the spot. The view made all the acrobatics worthwhile.

To the northeast, we could see the river winding its way through a valley that broadened beyond the town. I could spot a small boat in the middle of the river - fishing, perhaps? - and another banked on the lush green shore. Further inland, there were tall, surprisingly normal-looking trees and pinpricks of brilliant colour that must have been flowers. The entire scene looked (deceptively, I knew after yesterday) peaceful.

The sunlight flashing off the river made me squint and let my gaze drift beyond it - then up, and up, and further up, my eyes widening. Although I'd only been rained on once, the weather had tended to sullen grey clouds since I'd arrived, and this was my first opportunity to see the incredible mountain they'd apparently been hiding. In fact, the peak was still shrouded, but enough of the rising landscape was visible to make the awe-imposing heights it must reach clear. Why, that one mountain must be visible from every corner of the island! I've never seen the like.

"This place is beautiful," I said to break the silence.

"Ajira is pleased you think so. She found it when she was very small and has been visiting ever since. She is very glad that now she is big enough people do not try to fetch her back down!" Ajira gave a fanged grin. "Silly tailless folk, thinking we fall as easily as you do."

I gave the appendage a glance - it must make balancing a lot easier. I found myself seized by a sudden moment of tail envy, and groped for another topic to distract myself. "So did you grow up in Balmora?"

"Yes," Ajira answered. "Ajira's mother worked here, once." I was still looking at her tail, and so noticed when it started shifting restlessly. It didn't seem as if this was a topic of conversation she was particularly comfortable with.

Rather than probe further, I took a bite of my rat-inna-bun and decided that even if it was made of E.R.Ds I didn't care as it was delicious. In fact, if it really did contain actual rat that had its advantages after all. I hadn't forgot my first day on the island - as with the kagouti yesterday, eating them would be poetic revenge given what they'd planned to do to me.

"So what happened yesterday?" The small talk was over.

"Well, I got to Lake Amaya all right, but then..." and again I began to recount the sorry tale.

Ajira made an excellent sympathetic audience. She oohed, aahed and winced in all the right places. She shared my disgust for the horrible pilgrim, nodded understandingly when I related how I ended up looking for the Bosmer's missing friend despite myself, and when I got to the kagouti she could barely sit still from the suspense. "Kagouti! They are dangerous, very dangerous, very aggressive - oh, Ajira will never forgive herself for sending you out," Ajira moaned. "How did friend Adryn survive?"

"Well." I bit my lip. "I managed to paralyse it-"

Ajira's eyes went wide. "You know a paralysis spell? But they are so difficult and - can you teach Ajira?" I had to smile at the imploring look she sent me.

"Sorry, I would if I could but it's not really a spell." I distracted myself with crumbling some of the rat-inna-bun bun and scattering it onto the water. I could see a few tiny fish gathering underneath it - the largest barely as long as my thumb, the smallest only visible due to their bright colour. Why couldn't more of the animals here be like that - reasonably sized, preferring fresh pastry to fresh person? "...I was born under the Lover, you see."

"Ohhhh. Ajira sees. She has never witnessed it herself, but she has read that the Lover-born can paralyse with a touch. It sounds very useful! Ajira is a little jealous - she has no such birthsign abilities, you see."

I looked up, distracted from watching the fish. "Why, what sign were you born under?"

"The Apprentice. Which is why she is only a little jealous." Ajira grinned at me.

I whistled; I was definitely not just a little jealous at that moment. The Apprentice is often considered the single best sign for mages, as those born under it have nothing short of prodigious magicka reserves - almost as much as those born under the Atronach but, unlike those unfortunates, still able to regenerate their own magicka. (Not that I have anything against the Atronach-born. Quite to the contrary, an Atronach-born can be an alchemist's best friend - or more specifically, an Atronach-born's unending need for restore magicka potions.)

"If you want birthsign abilities, I'll gladly trade you!" The Lover, being in the domain of the Thief, is not a birthsign I have ever heard anyone suggest when it comes to the "best sign for mages" competition. Needless to say, my magicka reserves were really nothing to write home about.

"Ajira is sorry, friend Adryn, but she does not think it works that way. Besides, her life would have gone very differently if she had not been born under the Apprentice, and Ajira likes her life the way it is." I cocked my head inquisitively, but Ajira didn't seem inclined to elaborate. Instead, she continued, "At least you can rest assured that there are advantages to being Lover-born. If Ajira were attacked by a wild kagouti she would undoubtedly end her life in its stomach, whereas you defeated the beast-"

"Well, 'defeated' would be putting it a little strongly," I said in a small voice.

Ajira's whiskers twitched inquisitively.

"The Lover's ability costs a lot of energy. I, um. Fainted. Right afterwards."

"Oh, yes! Ajira remembers reading about that as well. Next time," seriously, Ajira was probably younger than I was, she should not be able to manage such an excellent elderly matriarch impression, "you should drink an energising potion immediately beforehand or afterwards."

That was actually a very good idea, except. "Well, I didn't have one with me..."

Ajira looked at me. I sensed that if she had anything to say about it, the next time I left the city walls I would be laden down with so many potions for any possible eventuality that I wouldn't be able to walk.

"So, did the man you rescued kill the beast?" she asked now.

I grimaced at the memory. "No. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was him running away."

My ears perked as I was treated to a long list of what must be genuine Morrowind curses. I made mental note of some of the more colourful - my repertoire could always be bigger.

"-that scamp-spawned cowardly fetcher who Chemua would refuse and Vaermina would be ashamed to count as her own... if friend Adryn ever wishes someone to teach him a lesson about bravery and loyalty to those who put themselves in danger for him, she need only ask Ajira."

She seemed deadly serious, but I had to bite back a laugh imagining Ajira menacing anyone. "Ah, that'll be all right - after all, nobody got hurt in the end. Someone rescued me, a... floating armoire?"

Ajira's tail - previously swishing back and forth angrily - stopped dead. "Buoyant Armiger?"

"Yes, that. Honestly, that name..."

Ajira leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Ajira would be very grateful if friend Adryn did her a favour and didn't mention this to Galbedir or Masalinie."

"What? Why?" Were the Armigers disliked for some reason? But why Galbedir and teleportation girl specifically?

"Because if you tell them, they will not be able to stop talking about it for weeks," Ajira moaned. "It is bad enough with them reading those books all the time. 'The fair maiden and the valiant Armiger', or 'Fadresi Varyes at Molag Mar' or 'hello, the person who drew the cover thought big breasts and muscles were more important than adhering to basic anatomy' - nothing sensible like Saryoni's Sermons or texts about flora or magicka! And then they sigh about how they dream of being rescued by a brave, strong, handsome Buoyant Armiger - friend Adryn, I beg of you, if you tell them they will get carried away and Ajira's desk is directly next to Masalinie, do you understand?"

It sounded as if Buoyant Armigers had more in common with knights than I'd thought - in particular, that they had the same role as popular romance novel stars. And that I'd been more accurate than I'd thought with thinking yesterday evening had been a very cliched set-up. But... "The Armiger who rescued me was a woman. Does that make any difference?"

Ajra fingered her whiskers thoughtfully. "They will be a little less enthusiastic, Ajira believes, but only a little. Male or female it is an Armiger, Adryn understands?"

"So... such relationships are accepted here?" I'd found myself assuming so, given everything I'd grown up hearing about dark elven attitudes towards sex and that Ervesa hadn't reacted badly to the mention yesterday, but it's best to be sure of these things. "I know they're tolerated in Cyrodiil, but a lot of the people in Skyrim frowned on them and in High Rock I heard they were even illegal some places."

Ajira shrugged. "Here, nobody cares, unless the people involved are of a high rank. The daughter of a Redoran noble or of Duke Vedam Dren, she is expected to get married and have children, yes? And if she does not she is called selfish and betraying her family. But such things are rarely the case for the people Ajira knows... unless they have been keeping something from her, she supposes."

We looked at one another, each - I suspected - trying to envision the other as a high-ranking noble swathed in silk and surrounded by servants. At any rate, we both burst into laughter a second later.

*****

Notes: My description of Red Mountain is inspired by the Teide - I visited Tenerife a year ago and was really struck by it.

Next

"Rat-in-a-bun"? I'm really glad I wasn't drinking anything.

I really like the way the friendship between Adryn and Ajira is blooming. I also am enjoying Adryn's growth, I feel like some of her youthful paradigms are being altered or eliminated all together. This story is getting better by the post and I am anxious to find out what's next for her.

I think you want "easier" instead of "easily" here.

And as far as being in the same situation as Adryn on the silt-strider, working in retail you are at the mercy of the population of shoppers.....

You had me in absolute hysterics with the dialogue in this chapter !!!

I'll only quote two, but could have so many more !!







ROFL !!! Awesome Write !!

Oh, I missed an update! That means I got the delight of reading two back to back.

Like Athynae, I’m really enjoying the friendship between Adryn and Ajira. Maybe it’s Adryn’s history with animal life, but I was seriously expecting a much larger fish to lunge up out of the depths and devour the cute little ones that Adryn was feeding.

"Rat-inna-bun" -- I think I detect a Terry Pratchett fan!

This story is fun!

And the quote-fest continues---

[quote]…unless, that is, the person trying to reach it was a total stranger to the city with the approximate sense of direction of a drugged chicken. Let's just say that I was quite damp by the time I found the place.[/quote]

Well- and as small as Suran is, SEEING the strider is easier than REACHING it.

[quote]I'd thought Fighter's Guild members ran more along the lines of big brawny hulking fighters who were confused by words more than two syllables long.[/quote]

And Adryn’s introduction to glass weapons was a treat (no surprise).

[quote]"No," I moaned. "All I got from yesterday were near-death experiences and this map here." I wiped my hands on my trousers and fished the damnable thing out of my pack. "I suppose it's useful to have one, but when you were expecting a reward that's a little, shall we say, shinier and more metallic..."[/quote]

That, coming just before the revelation of the map’s actual value, was simply wonderful.

[quote]"...it would have been very, very stupid, yes. Whoever gave this to you must have really liked you."[/quote]

Especially when we remember it was the grouchy, anything-BUT-humble pilgrim who gave it to her.

[quote]I may have drooled. If so, it was obviously to do with being a Mages' Guild member confronted with a type of magic I didn't know (a shield spell, something hidden in the dim mists of memory nudged me), about the passionate search for magic-related knowledge of all kinds, and nothing whatsoever to do with a way to stay dry.[/quote]

Of course- and I also imagine Adryn has some lovely waterfront estates in the Ashlands she is willing to let go for much below market value- but ONLY to a select clientele.

[quote]"I think you must be confused. The bushes are over there, you see. At least, I assume that since you were talking to a 'fair flower of beauteousness' you were trying to address the local plant life, given that I told you my name just now."[/quote]

Ah yes- the surest way to Adryn’s heart is most assuredly NOT by forgetting her name.

[quote]...many of them will react as though you're speaking Aldmeris, and some of them will take you pouring the boiling hot potion of feebleness you were working on over their heads while screaming at them to get out as a sign that "she must really like me!". Eddie was definitely, definitely of the last sort, even though I sadly didn't have any feebleness potions at hand.[/quote]

And the poor silt-strider, victimized by bad poetry.

[quote]"Look up a portal to Oblivion!" I retorted, while resolving never to set foot into the Lucky Lockup.[/quote]

Makes note to self to save that one for use at an appropriate moment.

[quote]And yes- the joys of the USELESS supplies that restock in the Mages Guild. Restore Willpower- of course- because Willpower is what gets depleted when one casts spells. Oh wait- no it doesn’t- that would be MAGIC that depletes and needs to be restored.[/quote]

[quote]Well, something lethally horrible - given that I thought spending a several-hour silt strider journey in close quarters with a man who had a decidedly overinflated perception of his appeal, wit, and poetic ability certainly qualified as 'something horrible', not to mention the brothel, how could I possibly forget the brothel. And the evil fiend disguised as a pilgrim whose only purpose on Nirn was evidently to torture me. Oh, right, and I supposed almost dying probably counted as well.[/quote]

Yes, that is a long quote and I do not care, because it so perfectly captures Adryn and why we love her so.

[quote]…you don't want to add something mainly consisting of water to a hot liquid containing anything that ever touched a Daedra. Trust me on this." I still had the scars. Literally.[/quote]

And an English language rhyme to go with it-

Johnny was the chemist's son, but Johnny is no more

What he thought was H2O was H2SO4

[quote]...so we got "rat-inna-bun"…[/quote]

Hooray for Discworld!

The scene of luncheon on the wall was simply beautiful. Lavish descriptions of the landscape AND of the growing friendship between the OTHER “A and A team.” Especially effective is the seemingly idyllic interlude with the dark currents beneath the surface.

[quote]…seriously, Ajira was probably younger than I was, she should not be able to manage such an excellent elderly matriarch impression,…[/quote]

[quote]Someone rescued me, a... floating armoire?[/quote]

Everything is brilliant and hilarious- and then- heartfelt as well.

Thanks for all the comments! As a warning, the next installment may take a bit longer to post, because I've been stuck connecting it up to the next bit for a while. :/

@Athynae - the friendship between Adryn and Ajira is something I really enjoy writing, so I'm glad you like! and yes, Adryn is evolving and I take it as quite a compliment that that came through... although at the moment it's mainly a matter of starting to relax and let her defenses down.

@mALX - thank you!

@Grits - oooh, you're right, I totally could have... but I do have to give Adryn breaks sometime, you know? Otherwise she'd just become numb and start ignoring things, she has to have moments of peace so the horror has full impa- I mean, I am a nice author who is kind to my characters, that's it.

@Glargg - Hey, welcome to the story - I'm glad you enjoy it so far! And the rat-inna-bun seller, no doubt, was cutting his own throat letting them have it at such prices and was called something like Dibulo .

@treydog - How did you ever guess about those Waterfront estates? And thank you for your kind words regarding the setting - description is quite a bit harder for me to write than most other things (whereas, for instance, Adryn in full sarcasm mode positively flows onto the page - a fact that probably ought to worry me) but I want to have the occasional panorama. I'm glad it worked for you! Also, thanks for the rhyme, which I'd never heard before and made me giggle.

Last installment, Ajira and Adryn gossiped. This installment, Ajira and Adryn... gossip. And Adryn learns a little more about the history of her friend.

Chapter 5.5

*****

Once we'd calmed down, Ajira shot a guilty look at the sun - now noticeably lower in the sky than it had been when we'd left. "Ajira really ought to go back to work. Soon customers will be coming and will be angry that she is not there to sell them potions! If she is not careful, some of her customers will decide it is better to go to Nalcarya 'oooh I am a master alchemist who is much better at everything than a mere Mages' Guild Apprentice, and also my neck has a crick so I cannot lower my nose' of White Haven - er, please do not repeat that," Ajira added anxiously as I started laughing. "But Ajira still has not heard everything that happened to friend Adryn!"

"Well, not much happened," I lied, "I can tell you quickly as we walk back." I tossed the remaining scrap of bun to the fishes and carefully started moving back towards the shore. "It was just, it was quite late by the time I-" woke up, "recovered from the attack. So Ervesa, she's the Armiger, she taught me this spell, to teleport you to the nearest Temple-"

"Ah, Almsivi Intervention," Ajira nodded. "Ajira has heard of it, but does not know it."

"It's not that hard, really. She thought that way I could get back to Balmora that evening. But we ended up landing in this place called Suran..."

"Ah. This is why Ajira does not know that spell! She has heard of enough misadventures like that."

"I don't blame you." I let myself fall to the ground and paused to catch my breath "We ended up having to stay the night." And where, I wasn't going to say.

"Ah, the tradehouse? Ajira has been there before. Ashumanu Eraishah is very nice, don't you think?"

I remembered the smiling face telling us she was very sorry, there were no beds free. "I... didn't really get to know her. I'm sure you're right, though. Anyway," I continued, changing the subject hastily while Ajira was distracted getting back off the wall, "I took the silt strider back in the morning and, well, here I am."

"So not as bad as Ajira feared... still, she will not send friend Adryn out alone again," Ajira said dolefully. "She did not realise it would be so dangerous."

I nodded emphatically. "Honestly, I don't blame you for not wanting to collect the ingredients yourself now."

"Well..." Ajira stopped walking and scuffed at a cobblestone with her foot. "Animals are not entirely what Ajira is worried about."

"What do you mean?" I was confused.

"Ajira supposes friend Adryn deserves to know, since she put herself in danger looking for ingredients Ajira was too afraid to go out for. It is... you are aware that slavery is legal in Morrowind?"

I shivered, remembering the horrible woman from yesterday and her talk of the 'slaves at the plantation'. "I am now."

"The preferred races for slaves, you see, are Khajiit and Argonian." Ajira was staring out over the river, her voice distant. "Other races, Ajira hears they are taken sometimes as well - especially in the east, among the Telvanni - but everywhere, mainly Khajiit and Argonian. The Hlaalu here have great plantations, saltrice and corkbulb and marshmerrow, all tilled by slaves. The Dres on the mainland, even more."

I swallowed convulsively. "That's - that's horrible."

"And of course, all those slaves have to come from somewhere, yes? The Dunmer send expeditions to Black Marsh and Elsweyr, but that is far away - Elsweyr especially - and may make people angry. May make the Empire go 'no, if you don't stop enslaving people from other provinces you may not have slaves any more.' May even start a war. So much easier if they can just catch them right here. They see a Khajiit walking alone in the wilderness and-"

Ajira made a quick motion with her right hand that reminded me of a trap springing shut. "No battles, no diplomatic incident, the leaders in Black Marsh and Elsweyr are happy the Dunmer are not stealing their people, the Dunmer are happy they do not have to fight angry warriors in those places, the Empire is happy they do not have a second Arnesian War threatening to break out. Everyone is happy. Except for the Khajiit."

"I- Ajira, I'm so sorry. I had no idea." Although... "I don't remember seeing anyone who could have been a slaver yesterday, though. Even that horrible pilgrim - she was old and unarmed, if you don't count her tongue. Is it really that dangerous?"

"Ah yes, a lot of people ask Ajira that." She still wasn't meeting my eyes. As usual, the nagging little voice that told me I probably shouldn't have said that popped up after the fact. "Say that it cannot possibly be so dangerous so close to town. That there are no slavers near Balmora. Except." Her voice was growing quieter and quieter, to the point where I had to lean in close to make sure I understood her. "That is what Ajira's sister thought."

Her sister thou-?

Oh.

I suddenly felt as though I'd just had a big meal consisting not of rat-inna-bun but of Adryn's foot, garnished with offensiveness and with a side dish of being a oblivious donkey who should learn to think before she speaks. It's a meal I find myself having relatively regularly, but not usually in this sort of size and it doesn't usually lie quite so heavily in my stomach.

"I- Nine, Ajira, I'm sorry- I didn't know. I shouldn't have said that. That's awful. I... I'm sorry about your sister." What did you do in this sort of situation? Someone should publish a book: 'The guide to properly apologising and sympathising once you have yet again managed to unintentionally deeply offend someone and remind them of various horrible past experiences.' I'd buy it.

Ajira sighed gustily and turned her head to look at me. "It is all right. Friend Adryn did not know, and it happened some years ago. Just... Ajira is very, very careful now. And she does not go out of town without escort."

"I understand. Really, I'm sorry," I repeated in a small voice.

"It is really all right, but..." Ajira gave a small smile. "If she wants to make it up to me, friend Adryn can read through Ajira's reports and tell her if they are all right or if anything needs to be changed. After all, they are on the experiments we did together."

I seized the change of topic like a drowning mer. "I can definitely do that. How did you describe the poison effects in the end?"

"Well, Ajira thought it best to make clear from the start that they were two entirely different types of poison, with the violet corprinus's being closer in type to bittergreen in the way it causes palpitations of the heart as opposed to the stomach cramps induced by the luminous russula, but she did put aside a section to speaking of their combination..."

*****

Next

I liked Adryn's quick thinking to skirt the whole where we stayed issue, nice when "quick thought" works well.

Ajira's story was so very sad. I do hope that someday Adryn can maybe find Ajira's sister???? Just a thought.

Well done Kaz, I enjoyed watching them connect even more and I do believe it bothered Adryn much more than Ajira that Adryn had her foot for dinner.

Isn't it amazing what finding a true friend can do for a being, I think maybe Adryn might be seeing things in a bit of a different light. I like watching the slow but realistic progression that this friendship has brought for Adryn. I look forward to more....

Impatiently!!

@Athynae - Yes, it bothered Adryn quite a bit more - Ajira is kind of used to people being unpleasant about this subject (and knows about Adryn's social skills) so is happy that Adryn is at least trying, whereas Adryn is just getting used to having a person in her life who she cares about again.

Last installment, Adryn and Ajira finished their lunch-slash-gossiping-session and Adryn learned more about Ajira's past and why exactly she was so afraid of going ingredient-gathering herself. Now, it's time for alchemical shop talk about report writing.

Chapter 5.6

*****

I stared at the reports and tried very, very hard to control my expression. Because at the moment I was dangerously close to bursting out into laughter, and with an anxiously shifting Ajira standing next to me I suspected both would be the end of our friendly working relationship.

"Well? What do you think?"

I took another moment to impress it on my facial muscles that they were going to do what I wanted them to do, thank you very much, this was not up for vote. "It's. Ah. You've definitely written down everything we've discussed." Written it down, in fact, in exactly the way we'd discussed. Complete with, for instance, remarks about how Galbedir was most undeserving of being raised to Journeyman status, totally theoretical digressions about what effects a potion that drained intelligence would have slipped into her morning tea, and complaints about how lazy and unreliable the local apothecaries were. I had to admit, if this style were widely adopted in academic writing scholarship would become a lot more amusing. And blood feuds between alchemists much more common, admittedly, but I would consider that an acceptable side effect.

"That is good, no? Ajira made sure not to leave anything out in case it was important!"

Yes. She'd certainly done that.

I pondered how to break it to her. "Ajira... how much experience do you have with formal academic writing?"

"Um." Ajira looked away. "This is the first time Ajira has ever written a report like this."

Somehow, I wasn't surprised.

"And what about reading it? Have you read many textbooks, papers by researching alchemists, that sort of thing?"

Ajira was shaking her head. "Only very little. Those which are here in the guild, they are mostly about such alchemy as uses the ingredients available in Cyrodiil, yes? Much writing about the uses of arrowroot or lotus seeds, very little about gold kanet or trama root or the mushrooms. It is one reason the honoured Ranis Athrys has asked Ajira to investigate such things. And before she joined the guild..." Ajira seemed suddenly fascinated by the stained counter. "Ajira did not have access to such things at all. She learned on her own."

"Ah, don't worry about it. I'm mostly self-taught myself," and was equally familiar with the derision one experienced as an alchemist without a proper training pedigree. Even taking my general cynicism into account, it's surprising how many people care nothing about whether or not you can actually brew a potion in favour of whether or not your family was able to pay your way into the Arcane University. I keep hoping for the day where they all end up poisoned by the sorts of incompetents with more book learning than sense they call "real alchemists".

Judging by Ajira's downtrodden expression, it was the same here. I patted her shoulder gingerly. "It doesn't mean we're worse alchemists - in fact, I think we're better for having had to work everything out on our own. But it makes it hard to pick up things like the style of academic writing, and Ranis probably expects you to use that."

Ajira stared at me hopefully. "Can you teach Ajira, then?"

I'd walked straight into that one, hadn't I.

*****

I stood behind the alchemy desk musing over the strange turns that life takes.

I'd spent some time giving Ajira pointers (mostly along the lines of "no, you should not explain exactly why Nalcarya is an awful person and horrible alchemist who doesn't deserve the customers she has, even if her refusal to sell you any ingredients did mean you couldn't do half the experiments you wanted"). Thankfully, this had gone relatively well - Ajira had honestly wanted to know how to make her writing formal enough to pass muster and hadn't taken offense at any of the things I'd pointed out, which was something I'd been worried about. I'd tried to be tactful, but... well. Tact and I have never been the best of friends. In fact, our relationship could probably be more closely described as somewhere in between chilly hostility and open warfare, given what generally happened when I tried to get tact on my side. Most likely I'd dreadfully offended it at one point without meaning to. That happens more than I'd like.

At any rate, after a detailed and thankfully friendly discussion about the do's and don't's of report writing, at least as far as I understood them, Ajira had decided to retreat and rewrite her report. However, given that it was Fredas afternoon, business had picked up and Ajira couldn't just leave the alchemy desk unattended. But since fortune had it that there happened to be another alchemist standing around with nothing to do now that she'd finished her imparting of wisdom...

All of which, together with Ajira's best sad kitten impression and use of "friend Adryn" (a combination that was so devastatingly effective it ought to be banned) led to me selling Guild potions to the townsfolk. Being a merchant. Being, in other words - I shuddered inwardly - positively respectable. Or as respectable as it's possible to be when you still feel as if you ought to be stealing the potions instead of selling them. Which was still far more respectable than I found entirely comfortable; I couldn't help the feeling that some fundamental law of nature had been violated and as soon as nature realised it disaster would follow.

Unless it already had and "disaster" was taking the form of "customers". I wouldn't be surprised.

The walking disaster I was dealing with right now still hadn't finished his appraisal of a simple energising potion, despite my lengthy mental digression. At the beginning, I'd thought the old Imperial must be a master alchemist himself, given how carefully he was studying the list of ingredients on the label. Now, my thoughts were going along decidedly more uncharitable lines, including but not limited to speculation about how well the pair of spectacles on his nose actually worked.

"You. Girl." I fought down the sudden burst of rage by mentally repeating a merchant does not start screaming at her customers until I was sure I could stay in control of myself. It had been my mantra for the afternoon, and I felt my close adherence to it made me a veritable candidate for the Psijic Order. "What's in this potion?"

A merchant does not start screaming at her customers.

"Excuse me," I said through gritted teeth. "Could you hand me the bottle so I can read the label?" The one you've been staring at for the last however many minutes, apparently without picking up a single word of it-

He stared at me for a long moment until I was already preparing myself for him to tell me how it was an utter disgrace that I didn't know the ingredients of every single potion in the place by memory (something he would not, sadly, have been the first person to attempt). Thankfully for my temper, he handed it over quietly in the end.

"Well, if you just read this label here," I was proud of myself for managing to keep that sentence only moderately sarcastic, "you'll see that it contains water, kresh weed pulp, minced kwama egg hide-"

"Kwama egg!" the man spat. "You use that filthy stuff in your potions?"

I stared at him. "Er... is there a problem with kwama eggs?"

"You expect me to drink something that came out of an insect? Vaermina's filthy creatures, they are. Bad enough you dark elves eat them, but trying to hide`the vile stuff in potions so good honest folk like me get fooled into-"

I squeezed my eyes shut. A merchant does not scream at her customers. Even if they are insistent on explaining to you how your race's diet makes you barbarians. Weren't Bosmer the usual suspects for that kind of thing-

Wait, hadn't Ajira pointed out the cupboard with alternate potion formulations to me? She'd said it was for customers with allergies, but I was willing to make an exception for this man if it would make him stop shouting at me about the evils of kwama eggs.

"Just a moment, I may have something." I opened the cupboard door - yes, there it was, energising potion, thankfully without anything kwama-related. I drew the bottle out. "This one doesn't contain kwama egg," I explained. "The ingredients are water, chokeweed, hackle-lo, some alcohol-"

"Alcohol? Alcohol?"

Oh no.

The man's expression said I could expect spittle flying any minute now, so I ducked in precaution as he raged on. "I walk into the guild expecting to find reputable alchemists, not - not - harlots pretending to respectability in order to cater to drunkards!"

Harl... excuse me?

All right, that was it. Merchants not screaming at their customers was all very well and good but I wasn't even one anyway, just a very out-of-place substitute.

"Actually," I snapped, cutting across the man's invective about how he would make sure I got kicked out the guild to starve, "the alcohol is a byproduct, used because some ingredients are easier to store and more effective after fermentation. Morever, so much of it is boiled off during preparation that in order to actually get drunk off it you'd need to take so many that you wouldn't sleep for days. If you're worried about potion abuse, you should be worrying about that, not two drops of alcohol."

And really, that was where I was used to the moral outrage starting. Alcohol content was definitely a new one for me, but the abuses of rejuvenating and energy-fortifying potions among students at the Arcane University so that they can study for three days straight are talked about throughout the Empire, and there'd been talk about banning or restricting speed-boosting potions in Skyrim for as long as I'd lived there. Ludicrously so, I'd thought, since they're really harmless. Even I, with my general dislike of altering my state of mind, had tried them the first time I got my hands on the ingredients several years ago and spent a very pleasant evening bouncing around with-

The man who had a moral objection to kwama egg, alcohol, and - I suspected - at least one ingredient of every potion we stocked, had apparently ignored my interjection entirely and was still talking. Ordinarily, I'd have felt guilty about tuning him out, but for some reason I had the impression I wasn't going to have missed much.

"-trying to ply their dreadful homebrew to innocent customers, this would never happen in the Imperial Cult-"

See?

"Well," a new voice interrupted, "if you're so upset this place isn't like the Cult, why don't you go there to buy your potions? Fort Moonmoth isn't that far away, after all."

Both I and the plague on the life of innocent attempting-to-be-merchants turned to look at the newcomer.

A Redguard woman had apparently been waiting behind the outraged Imperial until she couldn't keep herself from intervening. Since she was apparently on my side, I found myself not minding in the slightest.

Backed up by my unexpected ally, I added, "Yes, it's only half an hour's walk or so." I'd passed the fort on both silt strider journeys and my ill-fated flower-gathering journey already, so I was becoming familiar with the area. "Or-" maybe I shouldn't be so eager to lose Ajira a customer, "if you tell me the ingredients you do not have any moral objections to, I can see if we have any potions that meet your specifications."

I thought this was an eminently reasonable suggestion, but the man just huffed wordlessly, turned, and strode towards the exit. I had to admit that, customer or not, I really wasn't sorry to see him go.

*****

Next

And for anyone who has been on the merchant side of this scene, it is all too common. Working retail is almost as bad as waiting tables in a restaurant, the average consumer has NO IDEA what it takes to do the job and put up with their less than hospitable attitudes!!!

Ok, off my soap box and on with my comments...

Excellent write.



Why yes, I do believe you did.

From there I would have to quote the rest of the segment. It was wonderfully written, so real that I felt like you had stepped in on a few of my retail memories



Yep, that says it all right there.

Kaz this was wonderful! I am truly beginning to love Adryn. I can't wait to see more!!!

*



What great lines !!! I also love how you've written Ajira's dialogue - no doubt she is Khajiit even if we didn't know, really well done!





ROFL !!! Absolutely loved this section, totally unexpected !! What a great light touch you have !!

I don't think we've seen the last of the huffy customer, but I could be wrong, lol. Great Write!!

*

Ajira stared at me hopefully. "Can you teach Ajira, then?"

Yep. Likely to be a learning experience for Adryn, too!

Oh dear. Customer Service Representative Adryn. Not her best day ever. But at least nothing's tried to eat her, and she showed great self control. And she had a good idea! That customer didn't deserve her.

Wheee!



Oh. I feel very much as Adryn does.

And you handle the entire passage with your characteristic skill.

The content of Ajira’s reports had me snortling again.



Fish- meet hook, line, and sinker. Except of course that Ajira was not being deceptive.



Yes- I did have to quote that whole bit. And I am laughing over it again.



Right- not "deceptive," but certainly something ELSE that causes people to find themselves in unexpected circumstances- such as poor Adryn discovering one of the worst planes of Oblivion- retail sales.

@Athynae - I admit I've never been on the retail end of this equation, but I've heard enough horror stories and seen enough awful behaviour as a bystander that I'm very glad I haven't! *shudders* Usually I'd say I'm glad my writing seemed accurate, but in this case I rather wish it weren't...

@mALX - I'm glad you like Ajira's dialogue and Khajiit speak! At the beginning I really struggled with it, but now it flows pretty well. Ajira's report-writing skills were kind of inspired by the in-game version, which also looked nothing like you'd expect formal scholarship to and included the lines "Ajira must do two reports and Galbedir must only do one silly report. Ajira deserves rank of Journeyman very soon now."

@Grits - Adryn tried, she did! She found unprecedented depths of self-discipline! We can only hope it lasts until the end of the workday...

@treydog - I do suspect Ajira has some idea of the effect she has and is abusing it shamelessly but not quite deceptive, no, because she's being honest!

Last installment, Adryn found herself in hell - that is, found herself an accidental salesperson. She's just managed to get one particularly awful customer to leave, with the help of a Redguard stranger...

Chapter 5.7

*****

I turned to the Redguard. "Thank you, and I'm sorry you had to see that. Do you want any potions?" Dealing with a customer who didn't treat me as either some sort of potion-dispensing Dwemer automaton or a verbal punching bag would be a nice change - but she was shaking her head.

"No, no, I'm not here to buy anything. Er- is Ajira here? Because earlier she asked me to get her this bowl." She hefted a ceramic bowl which I hadn't noticed her holding before. Probably for the best, as I'd only have been tempted to use it to attempt to whack sense into a certain someone's head.

"Yes, she's in the back."

I pulled back the curtain that led to the alchemy lab. Even having only been here for a few days, I knew that ordinarily I'd have been met by the comforting, homey sounds of potions on the verge of bubbling over and melting the countertop along with panicked shouts as the alchemist inhabitant tried to salvage the mess. However, today all was quiet - well, quiet except for the frustrated groans of someone attempting to write up a report. It was positively alien; only the chemical fumes (all the ventilation shafts in the world can only do so much) made it seem familiar again.

Ajira looked up when she saw me. "Friend Adryn! Would it be better to write 'the outcome' or 'the result' of an experiment?"

Apparently my instructions had given her the mistaken impression that I was some kind of expert here, someone who submitted reports to the Skyrim Mages Guild Journal of Alchemy or even the Arcane University's Alchemy Monthly to have them read by other alchemists all over the Empire. "I'm not sure," I told Ajira, dashing all those beliefs. "Both sound reasonable. Also, there's this woman saying you asked her to bring her a ceramic bowl?"

"Oh, Jamexa, yes - she is a new member, does Adryn know? She was asking around for duties, and Ajira needed a new bowl." Wait. So I was sent on dangerous trips into the wilderness involving angry kagouti, misjudged teleportation spells and brothels, but she got to go shopping? How was this remotely fair? "But now Ajira has to finish this report, Ranis Athrys is asking for it and Galbedir has already finished hers! Could friend Adryn give Jamexa this potion as a reward and tell her Ajira is very sorry, she does not have the time to give her new duties right now?"

Ajira barely waited until I nodded - grudgingly (reward? What was this reward business?) - before she started to bend over her parchment again. I had to hide a smile when I noticed how she stole a longing glance at the alembic in the corner before gripping her quill.

Outside, Jamexa accepted the potion (healing) with a smile and information that no new duties would be forthcoming with a shrug. "I was expecting it, to be honest," was her comment. "Ajira really didn't know what to do with me. She was already reaching with the last one. I'm Jamexa, by the way, but everyone just calls me Jamie. Except for Ajira, that is - I'm not sure Khajiit really understand the idea of nicknames."

"Oh, right. I'm Adryn."

I eyed Jamie suspiciously. She had a sword sheathed at her side; the callouses I'd spotted on her hands giving her the potion and the way she hadn't tripped over it yet (a feat I certainly could not have managed) spoke that she was well-practiced in its use. She wore the quilted jacket I knew many people wore under armour, and I had some suspicions that the bulging pack at her side contained exactly that. In other words, she looked an even more unlikely Mages' Guild member than me - but more importantly, she looked like the perfect person to send into the wild on dangerous ingredient-hunting expeditions.

I told her so.

"Well." Jamie shifted uncomfortably. "She did try sending me out to collect mushrooms at the start."

Suppressed giggles told me Teleportation Girl was again listening in on our conversation. Jamie scowled in her general direction. "Look, I'm from Kvatch, all right? Second biggest city in Cyrodiil? I've barely ever been outside city walls, my family aren't alchemists or mages or anything like that, how do you expect me to know these things? I tell you, anyone could have mistaken the dried rat droppings for mushrooms-"

All right, I suddenly understood why Ajira had sent me out instead.

"Sorry," I said once I'd managed to stop laughing. "Just- you actually- er. I guess you really must not be an alchemist, then, I can't imagine even an apprentice making that mistake."

For a moment, Jamie looked as though she were going to take offense - violent offense - to what I'd just said (my amazing powers of tactlessness, striking again), then she sighed.

"Honestly, I'm not much of a mage. I know enough Alteration magic and healing spells to get by, but I mainly joined for the services. I figured that since I had joined, I might as well help out." She shrugged. "I'm more of a warrior anyway," oh really? I would never have guessed, "but I'm new to Morrowind and looking for an organisation where I can fit in."

"She was even in the Imperial Legion for a while!" Teleportation Girl chirped. After a few seconds - which felt like an eternity of sheer horror on my part - she added, "For about ten minutes, that is."

Jamie groaned. "Masalinie, do you have to tell that story to anyone who stands still long enough?"

"But it's a great story! And besides," Teleportation Girl smirked, "we may have the shortest-serving Legion soldier in history. No other guild can say that!"

"Wait," I said, startled out of my automatic reaction to the Imperial Legion (which runs along the lines of excessive screaming, sometimes mental and sometimes not, generally followed by running). "Ten minutes? How does that work?" Surely even being thrown out for gross incompetence - and considering the Legion, it must be very gross incompetence indeed - took longer than that.

"Well, this is a bit of a long story. Do you want to hear it?"

Somehow, despite Jamie's affected reluctance, I got the impression that she loved telling this. I looked around - the afternoon customer rush seemed to have died down, and the only non-Guild member still in the building was an elderly woman who was asking Estirdalin for a spell to dry laundry. My skepticism was clearly mirrored on Estirdalin's face.

"Sure. Go grab a seat," I nodded at one of the stools near the desk, "I'll make us some tea."

I would have gone ahead and made the tea in an alembic and served it in beakers, but Teleportation Girl pointed me towards a cupboard in the corner. I fished out the battered kettle, raised an eyebrow at the collection of clay mugs and leather tankards the guild had apparently amassed and raised the other eyebrow at the inscriptions they'd picked up along the way.

"Someone figured out that you could use a controlled Fire spell to etch designs on tankards, then one of Ajira's failed potions turned out to work very well as paint and then, well, we may have gone slightly overboard," the Breton explained as I pondered the cup with "Battlemages do it with great balls of fire!" written on it in wobbly red letters. "Just take some- no, not the plain one, that's Sharn gra-Muzgrob's-"

I carefully selected three mugs, making sure to leave Sharn's, the one labelled "Guild Mistress", and (after some consideration of both the Bosmer's reaction and what a certain intrepid Khajiit alchemist might have already added to it) the one with "Galbedir's! DO NOT TOUCH" written on it in glowing blue script in the cupboard, then turned to making tea.

And oh, I forgave Ajira all her oddities - ranging from Khajiit grammar over being hilariously incapable of writing a proper report to sending me out on suicidal ingredient-finding missions - for tipping me off about hackle-lo tea with honey before she'd withdrawn to wage her quill-wielding battles. The tea wasn't as good as Dulnea's brew, but that didn't really say much, and it was absolutely ideal for early evening lethargia. Refreshing and effective in restoring your energy, without the jitters and insomnia my previous tactic of sipping energising potions gave you, and with a lovely sweet, slightly minty taste. What more could an alchemist ask for?

Judging by her expression Jamie seemed to agree, which made my culinary heart swell with pride. She closed her eyes and inhaled the steam for a moment, then launched into her story.

*****

Notes: you would not believe how much reading about how to decorate pottery I did for the mugs XD

Next

Hooray! Adryn is back! I am probably only slightly less happy about that than Ajira.



Loved the continuation of Ajira's wrestling with the report- and her assumptions about Adryn's skills in that area.



As I recall- only one of my characters ever got the "fetch a ceramic bowl" quest- and I am still not sure what the determinant was.



Why do I have a feeling that Jamie and Adryn are going to get along like naptha and a torch?



Trey is reminding himself that he is already married- and to a redhead at that. However, he still applauds Adryn's absolutley sensible reaction to the Legion.



This one was just wonderful- no surprise. Thank you so much for the laughter. I know Ajira already does the "big-eyed kitty trick" to Adryn... perhaps the "soulful dachshund" will work in inducing you to write some more?

I've been a bit busy of late and I almost missed this...I would have been kicking myself for a week!!!

Adryn survived her round of customer service rep, whew, glad she didn't hurt anyone.

Ajira's faith in Adryn to know is so endearing. And I'm sure that somewhere Adryn is happy Ajira thinks that much of her.

Another lovely addition Kaz, can't wait til the next one, maybe I won't be late catching it...

OH! The mugs were great, glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read "Great balls of fire!" Hilarious!!

*



ROFL !!! You slid these in and surprised me, I was not expecting that - but def a fitting response, lol !!



I absolutely LOVE that line !!!

*



SPEW !!! Your humor just slides in under the radar, I never see it coming till it hits! My monitor and keyboard will never be the same !!



Not just the hilarity, but this little detail tucked into waiting to learn Jamie's story - you ROCK !!!

Absolutely LOVED this chapter from beginning to end !!

Wait. So I was sent on dangerous trips into the wilderness involving angry kagouti, misjudged teleportation spells and brothels, but she got to go shopping? How was this remotely fair?

Well, since Adryn managed to survive it’s funny, but I imagine that would not be comforting.

And then it gets better, Jamexa’s shopping trip earns a reward!!

I love the custom tea mugs. Especially the one with the threatening message. It reminds me of those happy, long-ago lab days.

*looks around guiltily* Right, my apologies for the absence - life is being very stressful and I'm not writing that much either, alas. I haven't quite finished this chapter yet and the next one looks like Swiss cheese with all the holes... *siiighs* I will update when I can, though! And thanks everyone who's been commenting.

@treydog - The wiki says the ceramic bowl quest involves whether or not you leave the guild before asking her for the next quest? Which would explain why I never missed it in-game and didn't realise you could, I grab all the quests I can and then do them at my leisure. >>

@Athynae - I have to admit that I did not expect Ajira and Adryn to be this cute when I started writing them, but they decided to surprise me! I think it's a nice surprise myself.

@mALX - I start to worry that someone will sue me for indirect monitor destruction here XD glad you enjoyed it!

@Grits - the custom tea mugs are based on our departmental kitchen as well - be glad I didn't shoehorn in our Epic Teapot Story, 's all I'm saying. XD The Mages' Guild isn't really analogous to university life, but I do try to slip bits and pieces in where I can!

Last installment, Adryn met Jamie, another new guild member who is more combat-oriented and less alchemically inclined *cough*rat droppings*cough*. She got the shock of her life when Jamie said she'd been in the Imperial Legion... for all of ten minutes. Now, Jamie explains how she became the shortest-serving Legion soldier in history.

Chapter 5.8

*****

"I only arrived in Vvardenfell a few weeks ago," Jamie began. "And when I came here, I didn't have much more than the clothes on my back. So when I heard about the Imperial Legion recruiting up in Gnisis, I thought, why not give it a try? I'd never really considered joining the Legion before, but they supply recruits with armour. That really clinched it - I can't fight effectively without it, but I couldn't afford to buy any of my own."

So far, this all made sense. I had a sudden, unexpected burst of sympathy for all the people who must get snared and then brainwashed by the Legion this way.

Jamie took another long drink of tea and continued. "When I got to Gnisis, I went to speak to Darius, this commander of theirs. Lazy honoured user, that man - spends all his time sitting in the local tradehouse drinking ale instead of actually checking on his officers, and vain enough he got them to name the fort after him." She scowled. "Anyway, he said he'd be happy to have me, and in fact that he needed a newcomer he could use as a sort of independent agent. That suited me pretty well - I didn't think I'd make a good rank and file soldier, you know? I ask too many questions. So he sent me off to get my armour from the quartermaster-"

"Which took about ten minutes," the Breton threw in, grinning broadly.

Jamie frowned at her. "Who's telling this story, you or me?"

"Sorry," she said, not sounding particularly repentant.

"Anyway," Jamie turned back to me, "she's right, I don't think it took more than ten minutes. Apparently having armour that actually fits is a privilege of rank," she quoted acidly. "So quite soon I was standing in front of Darius again in a chainmail shirt that would have been big on an Orc."

"And then what happened?" I asked, fascinated.

"He looked at me and told me had a mission for me. Namely, apparently a widow in town owned a farm on land the Legion wanted to expand on. He wanted me to get the land deed off her." A dramatic pause. "He said he didn't particularly care as to how."

Judging by the glances Teleportation Girl and Jamie were shooting at me, they expected me to be outraged.

They weren't disappointed.

"Really?" I sputtered, appalled. "He- he just- I mean, I always knew the Legion was corrupt, but to just-"

Jamie nodded earnestly. "Really. I had about the same reaction."

"What did you do?"

"Really the only thing I could do," Jamie said. "I threw the armour they'd given me into his face - good thing it was so big, I could get it off easily - and told him that I was resigning immediately because he was a rotten fetcher who was probably here because no legion in Cyrodiil would accept him even as a boot-cleaner and I wouldn't be part of the sort of filth he was wallowing in for ten thousand septims. Then I marched out while everyone was still too busy gaping to do anything."

The smile that spread across my face was so broad it made my cheeks hurt. "That's amazing," I said with feeling. Imagining that scene made it hard to keep from bursting into applause, or laughter, or both, then and there.

"Thank you! And - do you know what the worst part was?"

"What?" I asked, agog.

"After that, I went to this woman - Vabdas, he'd told me her name - to warn her about what the Legion was planning. I figured it was only a matter of time before Darius found someone else to do his dirty business, you know? It turned out that her husband had only died very recently, under mysterious circumstances." She paused meaningfully. "Suspiciously mysterious circumstances."

"You don't mean..."

"I investigated it," Jamie said. "It wasn't as if I had anything else to do, and Tareyni - the widow - she was nice, you know, and still grieving for her husband and she didn't even know how he'd died. Snuck into the mine at night - it's a long story, but it turned out he was killed by a Legionnaire.

"That's right," she nodded at my shocked gasp. "I found some evidence - the murderer had left his axe still in the body, even. Took that to the village hetman. I hear he's going on trial next Sundas. Should be a short one, since he confessed - good riddance, I say." She pursed her lips-

"Please don't spit on our floors," I said hastily.

"Oh, right. Sorry."

"But, really," I said after the danger of saliva on our flooring, and possibly me as the low-ranking new guild member who didn't argue with Imperial Legion generals for fun told to clean it up, had passed. "This guy wants the land, and the poor woman's husband just so happens to get killed by one of his subordinates..."

"I know," Jamie said. "After Darius heard about it, he acted all outraged, apologised to the widow and everything - but of course he could hardly do anything differently now that the whole town had heard about it, could he?" She shrugged. "At least now he's not going to try getting at her land again if he has the slightest bit of sense. He'd have a rebellion on his hands."

"I'll drink to that." Teleportation Girl toasted Darius's frustration with her mug, then looked into it. "Or I would, if I had any tea left."

"I can make another-" I began.

"Uh, excuse me?"

We all turned.

"Sorry to bother you," the Breton standing behind us continued, "it's just, I'm looking for a potion to cure... um..." He looked at Jamie and Teleportation Girl. "Is there any chance of a little privacy?"

Jamie set the empty mug on the desk and stood. "I need to go see someone at the Fighter's Guild anyway," she commented. And even Teleportation Girl seemed to suddenly realise that travellers could be coming through any moment now. I mourned my tea break.

"So, um, the problem is..."

As the customer shuffled his feet, I mentally weighed the odds on this being chronic indigestion, a very intimate disease, or problems with a rather specific sort of stamina. At least he looked embarrassed enough that I didn't think it was a pretext to attempt (badly) to flirt with me... unlike the Imperial earlier. I can only thank the Nine for other races' fire resistance, or rather the lack thereof - a handful of flickering flames would never have sent a Dunmer scurrying that quickly.

Ah... business as usual.

*****

Notes: The hilarious thing is that my original plan for Jamie had her in the Legion. Then she showed up and... we had a difference of opinions on the matter. She won.

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No quote-fest this time (I am trying to cut down). Except of course, I want to quote the whole thing.

And I agree completely with your reading of the land-deed quest- it is just so coincidental that the Dunmer owner of the land the general wants just HAPPENS to wind up dead at the hands of a Legionnaire.

Well OK- one (longish) quote, because it is so perfectly Adryn-



So happy to see you back and to see more of your story.

*tiptoes in*

So life has been very busy, and that combined with hitting a serious writer's block on the next two scenes and then losing interest in Morrowind for a while led to me vanishing. However, in the past few weeks I've been plotting and putting fingers to keyboard, and have enough together that I think it's worth posting. Adryn is back, everyone - I hope you enjoy!

I ended up having to axe the scenes I was blocking on completely because they just weren't working. As such, the last thing I wrote is actually the end of Chapter 5, and we are now onto Chapter 6...

Chapter 6: 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5

Last year installment: During tea break, Adryn learned the details of Jamie's record-breakingly short Legion career. Afterwards, she was forced back to customer service (the horror!) She survived, and we meet her again the next day...

Chapter 6, part 1

*****

The next morning found me wandering towards the Eight Plates with a spring in my step and a broad smile on my face. Now, let me hasten to make clear that this is not a typical state of events; overall I find being a grumpy curmudgeon quite enjoyable, thank you very much. However, last night marked the first of what I hoped would be many occasions known as "Adryn sleeps through the night and does not have a nightmare". Correspondingly, this was the first morning since I'd arrived that I actually felt well-rested. I had dreamt, true, but the few fragments I could remember now were surreal but harmless and the worst it had caused me was a momentary disorientation waking. A far cry from my restless nights before, and reason enough for a good mood.

Perhaps my threats yesterday morning had had an effect? If so, I found myself rather underwhelmed by this "soul-sickness" and pitying the poor fools who didn't have the strength of will to stand up to it. Or maybe my dreams had really only been difficulty adjusting to Vvardenfell after all.

"Ah- Adryn, wasn't it?" Dulnea bustled up to me after I stepped into the inn. "I thought I might be seeing you again, after Estirdalin told me you'd joined the Mages Guild." Her eyes roved over my form in a way that would have made me much more uncomfortable if I hadn't suspected she was mainly interested in the embroidered robe I was wearing. "So you did visit Millie - that's a much better look for you." She clucked. "It's good to see you didn't come to any harm visiting that- that-"

I had to agree with her distaste at the thought of Caius, although I suspected my reasons for it were rather different from hers. All the same, best to head her off... what had that cover story been again...

Had I just actually thought the words "cover story"? When had my life turned into a bad spy novel?

I swallowed hard to keep myself from throwing up and launched into my explanation. "Oh, Cosades? Apparently he's an amateur historian or something, got a shipment of books he needed. If I were him, I'd spend less money on building up my library and more on moving into a nicer place, but..." I attempted a nonchalant shrug. "At least he paid me," paid for me, more like, and if I didn't stop this line of thought right not I was not going to be able to stomach breakfast, "and now I'm in the Guild."

"Hmm." Dulnea narrowed her eyes at me. "As long as you're away from that sort of thing now."

Desperately wishing I were, I nodded, not trusting myself to open my mouth.

"And how have you..." Dulnea's voice dropped, "your dreams been?"

I'd really meant to scold her for frightening me so, but all my anger faded away when I realised she was genuinely worried about me. "Oh, they're gone," I said airily. "Probably just trouble settling in. Nothing serious."

"That'- that's excellent." Dulnea looked almost more relieved than I'd been. "I'm glad things are going so well for you, dear. Now, I'd best be getting back to work - the mages' breakfast is through here, there are already quite a few people here."

I thanked Dulnea and slipped through the door she indicated into another room, this one dominated by a long wooden table set with various breakfast items - I could see spiced rolls, a jar of scrib jelly, a big bowl of what looked like some sort of porridge, a large teapot with- could it be?

Tea.

"Over here, Adryn."

I blinked, and realised that in my focus on food and divine nectar of the gods I'd totally ignored the people sitting around the table. One of them had just pulled out the chair next to him.

"Thanks, Marayn," I said as I sat down. "Er, can someone pass-"

"Tea coming right up," the Dunmer woman across from me said with a grin as she reached for the pot. "You're not the first person to come here with that expression on your face."

A few moments later I had a hot cup of liquid joy in my hand, and a few moments after that I was in alchemical heaven.

There was the smoky taste - scathecraw, Ajira had said - but it wasn't overpowering. It was balanced by something spicy and a sweetness that wasn't honey or sugar, but the thing that truly offset the acridity was a subtle undertone of something refreshing, the tiniest bit minty and... familiar?

Was that hackle-lo?

I opened my eyes in triumph. Another ingredient down! True, I still had no idea of amount or preparation, but given how unfamiliar I was with local ingredients any progress was something to be proud of.

The other woman giggled, something I might have taken offense to if I hadn't still been kindly disposed towards her for procuring the tea. "I don't think I've ever seen someone drink even Dulnea's tea with such concentration before," she said when I looked at her.

"I'm trying to work out the recipe," I explained. "My pride as an alchemist is at stake."

A scoff from the other end of the table interrupted me.

"Is there a problem?" I asked the Altmer who'd decided to prove he had no manners.

"As if you could," he drawled. "All the best alchemists in the guild - all the best alchemists on this benighted island, in other words - have been trying to work out the mixture to no avail. Anarenen, Ernand, and of course myself have spent hours bending our minds to the task. I can hardly believe some arrogant slip of a girl expects to make progress where we have failed."

Groans and eye-rolls around the table told me this attitude was common and not supported by the other people present, but I still wasn't going to take that lying down. "Well, I can hardly believe the guild employs giant peacocks, I thought it restricted itself to people. Moreover, I thought all of the members had to have something of substance in their heads. Apparently hot air is enough to qualify you."

The giant peacock's head grew red and he subsided as numerous people laughed.

"Nice one! I'll have to remember that," the woman across from me said. "I'm sorry for the idiot, who I happen to have the great misfortune of sharing a guild with. Our Guildmaster says he'll grow out of it one day, but I'm doubtful. I'm Uleni, by the way, Uleni Heleran - conjurer from the Sadrith Mora guild. The idiot is Tusamircil, but we're training him to respond to 'the idiot' so you don't have to bother remembering his name."

"Adryn," I introduced myself, ignoring the sputtering coming from the idiot's general direction. "I, in turn, seem to have the misfortune of sharing a profession with the idiot. I'm an alchemist - well, I guess that's a little obvious."

*****

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