I step out of the portal and find myself alone amid a landscape covered in ashen blue trees with islands of twisted black rock floating in hazy, steel-gray skies… No sign of the guilds around, nor my companions. Shit. I find my heart pounding and take a deep breath to steady myself. I’m fine. I can leave anytime. But I have to find my friends. I can’t leave them lost in a place like this. This isn’t helping me calm down.

  And of all the people to greet me, it’s Cadwell with his usual tin pot “helmet” on his head. Looking at him, for a moment I panic and think I’m back in prison, trapped and used for entertainment.

  “Well, look here, who could this be?” Cadwell says. “It’s a lost Orc! Say, you seem familiar.”

  “Hello, Cadwell,” I chuckle, pulling off my helmet and winking at him. “Don’t say the name, please. Call me Neri gro-Drublog.”

  “Mum’s the word, old friend,” Cadwell says. “Oh, that’s quite the dramatic music I’m hearing. Are you hearing that?”

  “Yes, I’m hearing that. Let me perk things up a bit.” I make a conscious effort to clamp down on the panic and shift the music to something more hopeful and heroic.

  “I say, you’re virtually a walking concert, old friend! That’s a fine trick. Where did you ever learn it?”

  “Long story,” I say. “By which I mean Sheogorath gave me a neat power after I performed a trivial but hilarious challenge. Have you seen my friends? Ugh, this didn’t happen last time we came in here. Is Varen just better at making portals than Vanus? Maybe they should swap their consonants around.”

  “If you mean the motley of miscellaneous mages and mercenaries, they got scattered all over the place,” Cadwell says. “Portals get twisted up all the time, especially when Molag Bal’s defenses are up.”

  “Fuck,” I say. “Of course he knew we were coming. And we didn’t have a distraction or anything to keep his eyes off of us, either, not that one would have worked for something like this. Where am I?”

  “You’ve arrived just where you need to be. A part of the realm I don’t think you’ve ever seen. A bit of an eyesore against the beauty of Coldharbour, and mostly empty right now, but your friends might like it. The Hollow City.”

  He points toward a bridge leading across a gap, toward a city with walls of stacked stone blocks, perhaps Imperial-style. This isn’t unusual, as many of the places in Coldharbour look like they were torn from Nirn or just imitating it. I don’t know how long this disguise is going to last, but for the moment, the direct eye of the God of Brutality is not upon me.

  “Thanks, Cadwell,” I say. “And it’s good to see you again. I’ll check out the city… and see if I can find my friends. Wherever they are, I hope they’re okay.”

  “Good luck with your quest!” Cadwell says. “Tally-ho!”

  I wish I could have just slipped in with my friends, like we did when rescuing two stubborn warriors and a snarky wizard. The snarky wizard in question had very good arguments for us doing it this way, but I didn’t expect to be separated from the others immediately. That doesn’t mean those arguments are invalid, though, so there’s not much point in cursing the situation or wishing it had gone differently. I just need to find my friends now. Across the entirety of Coldharbour. Where they’d followed me into hell and have complete faith in me.

  I pull out my communication orb to test if it will work from here. “Testing, testing,” I say into it. “Are you receiving this?”

  “I’ve arrived safely in Coldharbour and found a place of refuge. Was separated from the others on arrival and I will need to find them again.”

  “Kick some ass,” comes the reply. “I believe in you.”

  Malacath, I love that woman.

  It’s good to know my orb still works. No surprise that it does, though, since the cultists in Auridon were using one to communicate with Abnur Tharn in Coldharbour. I just wish I’d thought to splurge on ones for every one of my friends. I didn’t think it would be necessary. I should have been better prepared. I should have foreseen that getting separated from my friends could be a problem.

  Inside the mysterious city of light, there’s thriving green trees, blooming pink flowers, and even an intact temple of the Eight Divines, judging by the massive stained glass windows.

  A robed human woman meets me at the gate, claiming to be a groundskeeper, hands behind her back in a posture befitting a noble rather than a servant. As she explains about the city’s protections, I get the feeling that she’s way more than just a servant. She gives a history lesson and a tour.

  In short, this is Meridia’s city that she pushed into Coldharbour and Molag Bal can’t touch. It’s not a wonder I never heard of the place before. Of course Molag Bal would keep its existence quiet. Soul-Shriven aren’t allowed to keep hope.

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  “Who are you really?” I wonder.

  Obviously a devoted follower of Meridia, given the way she talks, but she’s unwilling to answer in more than riddles.

  “What do you see when you look at me?” I ask.

  “A mighty Orc warlord who can gather allies and strike back at Molag Bal,” she replies.

  I narrow my eyes. Only Daedra see an Orc when they look at me. Mortals can tell quite readily that my skin is bronze rather than green, if they actually get a look beneath my armor. I put my helmet back on.

  The city looks like people had just walked away in the middle of whatever they were doing, and sustained far less damage than one might expect from being hurled across the Aurbis. Most of the walls are intact and the buildings in perfect shape, ready to be repopulated and used as a base of operations. It’s convenient. Too convenient. And I don’t trust it at all.

  She also mentions an Ayleid king with a name that’s entirely too long having been in the city at the time, who was subsequently captured, and that I need to rescue him. Not that I needed much reason to try to rescue someone from Coldharbour but I don’t like the way she talks like this was all a given and of course I’m going to do what she says and she reminds me of fucking Azura.

  I leave her on the steps of the cathedral and go to explore the city on my own. The plants remind me of Summerset with their soft blossoms so out of place in this realm, but the city probably was once in Cyrodiil from the look of it. It’s not completely deserted, but the handful of people here look immensely glad to see a new helmet.

  In one building, a Dremora is selling furniture and magically shrunken rocks and trees for some reason. A book titled I Was Summoned By a Mortal lays on the counter near him. (Summary: Vanus once summoned a Dremora who was rather miffed about it.)

  Near one of the gates leading out of the city stands structure that distinctly reminds me of a wayshrine. It’s bigger than most of the ones I’ve seen, and has a high domed roof. I go up and light the brazier into the usual blue flame, but a warm Aedric flame and not the cold fire of Coldharbour. I touch one of the fancy Imperial columns, and feel that I can reach the other wayshrines back on Nirn from here. There’s a functioning wayshrine in Coldharbour. Why? *How? *I suppose this solves the issue of getting back here if I have to leave, but that doesn’t make me any less confused.

  “Come, do your trading here!” says a Redguard woman, waving to me. “I always have affordable items!”

  “Do you get much business here?” I wonder.

  Ramzasa (as she momentarily introduces herself) deflates. “No. I sold a volume of The Song of Pelinal to a Dremora a while back. You’re the first new customer I’ve seen in who knows how long. Time is weird here. I don’t know how long I’ve been here and I don’t want to go outside.”

  “Where do you get your merchandise?” I ask.

  “Just whatever I can scavenge from the city,” she says. “There’s not many left here and those who are gone don’t need it anymore. It’ll be good to get the chance to get some new merchandise, though.”

  I take a peek in one of her crates. “Damn. That’s a lot of copies of The Song of Pelinal.”

  “I don’t suppose I can sell you a volume?” Ramzasa asks hopefully.

  “Eh, I’ll buy out your entire stock of books,” I say, her eyes widening at my words. “I’m a king and I like to promote literacy. And I’m sure my Orcs might love to hear about that time Pelinal Whitestrake killed eight million six hundred and ten Ayleids.”

  I pay her and shove the entire box into my bag.

  “You’ll probably be getting a fresh batch of customers soon, too,” I say. “There’s a whole expedition from Nirn lost out there that will either find this place on their own or I’ll need to rescue.”

  It’s funny what freedom can mean even in a realm that’s basically one big prison. Even when I was trapped here before, it wasn’t like I was free to go anywhere I wanted. Now? So long as there isn’t an actual obstacle, nothing will stop me. “Obstacle”, of course, includes terrain, lack of terrain, magical barriers, locked doors, magically locked doors, angry Daedra, bored Daedra, stupid light puzzles, and mental health issues. At least some of these can be solved with an axe.

  I need to find my friends, but first, I need to test out something very important. I return to the wayshrine and bring up the network of threads again, not that I actually needed to be at a wayshrine for that, but it helps. I’ve become very familiar with the one outside Dra’bul. I’ve got a good grasp on this wayshrine and I’m pretty sure I can get back. If not, I’ll have to go to Vastarie’s tower and ask the Prophet to portal me back and try to find my friends and the way back to the Hollow City from there. I have no doubt that I can manage, now that I’ve been here and know what to look for.

  I grab the thread for the Dra’bul wayshrine. The impossible city of light vanishes to be replaced by the lush forests of Malabal Tor. I remain at the wayshrine and check the threads again. The one to Coldharbour is still present, and although I need to reach further for it, it seems no less strong than the others.

  Before I return to Coldharbour, I head into the stronghold to meet up with Roku.

  “Neri!” Roku exclaims, hugging me. “I didn’t expect to see you back already.”

  “There’s a wayshrine in Coldharbour,” I say. “It’s crazy. There’s this entire city there that’s protected from Molag Bal’s influence. Damn, if we’d known that ahead of time, I might have been able to use the wayshrine there to bring the others in safely. Molag Bal’s got defenses that scatter incoming portals but that wayshrine might not be affected by that…”

  “Don’t blame yourself for it,” Roku says.

  “What makes you think I’m blaming myself?” I say.

  Roku smirks. “Because you always blame yourself. For anything that goes wrong, even if you had no reasonable way of knowing something ahead of time. Spend more time looking for your friends rather than agonizing over having to do so.”

  I chuckle despite myself. “Yeah. You’re right. It’s Coldharbour, but it’s different when I know I can leave anytime I want.” I pull the box of books out of my bag. “I bought some books!”

  “You actually bought them and not stole them for once?” Roku opens the box and looks inside. “I’ll need to check with your book-wife if she has these already. She’s been sending us extras and we’ve started up a small library here too.”

  I groan. “Sahira-daro and I are not married. How did that even get started?”

  “Teasing you is funny, though,” Roku says with a grin.