A Breton woman by the name of Clarisse Laurent who was with the Mages Guild contingent trapped in the Library of Dusk bids me to search for her manservant, Stibborns. Or Stubbins. Or something. He was taken to a another building by some Daedra, so I agree to look for him, forgetting to ask how to spell the name and write it down.

  “How is a manservant different from just a servant?” Eran wonders.

  “I would imagine that it is a Breton thing,” Merry says.

  “I haven’t run into any merservants,” I say.

  Approaching the tower, I spot notes scattered loosely about the ground. Stibborns–no, Stibbons--is being held in a tower and he’s writing notes and dropping them out the window in hopes of them blowing somewhere someone who might be able to help him might stumble across them. A bit of a long shot, and makes me think in some amusement that people are likely to be finding Stibbons’ “help, I’ve been kidnapped by an amorous Daedra” notes for the next thousand years. And now my Library of the Mind will forever have these notes in it. At least it’s organized into sections…

  The tower in question is full of chains and cages, and populated by Winged Twilights and Dark Seducers. They’re probably quite thrilled at the prospect of some variety in their seductive diet. We climb the tower, killing Daedra along the way. At the top, we find Stibbons tied up behind a large Winged Twilight that his notes indicated was named Drasilla.

  “He’s mine. You can’t have him!” Drasilla screeches at us.

  “Might I suggest something called ‘consent’?” I say. “It’s wild. You should try it sometime.”

  Drasilla refuses to let go of her prize and get out of our way, so we kill her. I didn’t really expect her to submit, anyway.

  Merry unties Stibbons, and he bids us meet him at the wayshrine near the village to the east. The Daedra don’t bother him since Drasilla claimed him, but we, of course, have to fight our way out again since we hadn’t bothered being thorough enough in killing everything inside. There’s not much point (aside from fun) in killing Daedra who aren’t specifically in our way since they’ll just respawn eventually. (And trying to kill every Daedra in Coldharbour would not be fun. It sounds good, but it would be like trying to drain the ocean one drop of water at a time only for it to start raining again.)

  Once we leave the tower and look around, I spot the familiar stone gazebo shape outside a ruined village. Sure enough, it’s another Imperial-style wayshrine. Stibbons is waiting for us there, having found his way out of the tower safely.

  “Oh, there you are, good,” Stibbons says. “This wayshrine seemed safe enough from what I could see out of the tower but I am uncertain where to go from here. That village looks like it’s populated by Daedra and they don’t look terribly friendly from here.”

  “There’s a safe place nearby that we’re setting up a base of operations in,” I say. “Let me check something.”

  I climb up the few steps and light the wayshrine. Warm, blue flames flicker into existence, and I reach out through it in my mind to find the other threads. That’ll make this easier. Was Molag Bal really not paying attention to what he swallows, or did he not care too much since it’s not like most people can do anything with them? (Or more like, if they can, they have more efficient means of magical transportation at their disposal anyway.)

  “I’ll see if I can teleport you there,” I say.

  I remember way back when I was just starting to learn how to do this, how the explanations from the Mages Guild about “expanding the bounded field” just sounded like nonsense to me, and Sees-All-Colors suggested that I conceptually consider my equipment and my adventuring party to be a part of me. A nice way to look at magic, sure. But now, Drublog clan, all the Wood Orcs, all the Aldmeri Dominion, and everyone in this expedition are effectively my people.

  So I grab a hold of all of my people standing near this wayshrine and transfer us to the one inside the Hollow City.

  “Ah, this is so much better,” Stibbons says. “To think such a place might exist in a realm like this. By chance, did you see my Lady Laurent? I fear she must be lost without me.”

  “She was the one who told us where to look for you,” I say. “I’m not sure where specifically but she should be somewhere in the city. And not to worry, she’s got Telenger and Tom Gautier with her. I’m sure they’ll make sure she doesn’t starve.”

  “Oh, that is a relief,” Stibbons says flatly. “Tom helped us out on many occasions. None of which were his fault to begin with. And he never made anything worse.” He pauses. “I shall go find her, then. Thank you for coming to get me.”

  “Maybe she’s even found a place to bathe in actual hot water and not just cold plasm,” I add.

  “Fire magic has many uses,” Merry puts in.

  I teleport my party and myself back to the Dra’bul wayshrine, and I’m not even slightly feeling bad about deciding to sleep somewhere other than Coldharbour because I can. All the tension of Oblivion melts away with exposure to the safety of Valenwood and home. (I really hope Coldharbour’s defenses don’t disable my anchor points. I should talk to Cadwell about it. He’s the real expert at getting around Coldharbour. I’ve seen him flitting about here and there since we arrived but haven’t really stopped to talk much.)

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  “I’m a little confused about the situation back at the tower,” Eran says. “Didn’t you say Daedra are born from plasm? Do they… breed, or was that just for ‘fun’?”

  “Please, Eranamo, I do not wish to think about Daedra breeding,” Merry groans. “And definitely not about their idea of ‘fun’, for that matter.”

  While we’re here, I stop and heal a few people who had been injured by some sort of large animal they encountered in Pyandonea. No one was killed, my valiant hunt-wife slew the creature, and the wounded were portalled back here for treatment.

  Roku knows a few useful spells, learned from her shaman father, but isn’t good enough (or inclined to become good enough) to use it in combat. Still, it’s not useless to be able to mend a wound in an hour that would take weeks to heal without magic, or to stabilize someone until a real healer can see them. (Usually just me and Gelur stopping by regularly and taking care of those things while we’re here.) Not to mention the cleansing spells. It’s not heroic to die from something that can be easily avoided just by not being stupid and taking advantage of available resources.

  I do wish Gelur were here and hope she’s alright, wherever she is. My own healing ability is alright, but I don’t have the magicka reserves of a full-fledged mage (and no particular desire to be one).

  I use the wayshrine to take us back to where we were before to continue exploring. The ruined village I’d spotted past the wayshrine is full of Daedra and I don’t see anything useful in there, and it probably isn’t worth the time we spend on poking through it.

  “Why is all this stuff from Nirn here, anyway?” Eran wonders. “Is it just imitating Nirn or did Molag Bal literally take it from Nirn?” He pauses. “I mean, I never saw those Dark Anchors literally rip things out of the ground.”

  “There’s a lot of shit from Nirn here,” I say. “He’s not exaggerating when he says he wants to consume it. He’s just tired of taking small bites, I guess.”

  There’s one of Cadwell’s journals here. One of his hundreds or thousands of journals, this one being labeled “412”. This one is complaining about a piece of someplace falling into Coldharbour and the Dremora just coming in and breaking shit for no reason. I toss the book in my bag. I don’t know that he would really want it back but I might as well offer. And if not, I’m sure someone will be interested in the rambling of a madman in Oblivion. Like the Mages Guild.

  That’s about the only thing of value here, although there’s also a chest with some huge pointy shoulder guards. Who the fuck wears this sort of thing, anyway? Assholes. Assholes are the people who wear massive shoulder armor. You can always tell that someone is insecure about their authority by the size of their shoulder guards. (“Authority” is what we’re calling that part of the body now.)

  “Coldharbour looks like a bunch of ruins because its lord and residents want it to look like a bunch of ruins, really,” I say. “Hey, here’s a cheery thought to keep in mind next time you look at a map that might be wrong. It might not have been wrong.”

  “I just don’t understand how this can happen,” Eran says, sighing.

  “Neither do I,” I say with a shrug. “Maybe if he pulls hard enough on the chains, he’ll be able to draw all of Nirn into his realm at once. Maybe if they’re all able to stay down at once.”

  Another Ayleid ruin stands beyond the trashed village, and we approach the door. Missing expedition members could be trapped anywhere, and my hoping for scouts turned into having to rescue literally everyone from everywhere. It’s annoying as well that I just can’t help but wonder if Molag Bal intended it this way to be an additional challenge to test us. It’s not like he ever needs to make something possible. But they often find it to be far more entertaining to give someone a challenge that’s merely painfully difficult.

  Eran gestures to the door. “Are we playing ‘guess what’s inside’ again?”

  “It’s less fun with only three people,” I say. “But why not? Let’s guess. I’d guess that it might contain more hapless members of our expedition, but that’s more of a hope than a guess. We’re guessing what might go wrong and not what we hope will go right.”

  “I shall guess that it contains Daedra,” Merry says flatly.

  “No points for that guess,” Eran says. “I suppose we haven’t really been around here long enough to get a feel for what to expect. Aside from, obviously, Daedra. Maybe we could narrow it down to type of Daedra? I’m going with Watchers.”

  “Fine,” Merry says. “I shall say Dremora.”

  “I’ll say clannfears, chewing on everything and making a huge mess,” I say. “Winner gets moon sugar candy. Losers get consolation moon sugar candy.”

  We head down into the Ayleid ruin to find that it’s full of skeletons, without any Daedra of any type in sight.

  “Why are there skeletons in here?” Eran wonders. “I mean, in Coldharbour in general, not just this ruin.”

  “I would imagine that Molag Bal likes skeletons,” Merry says.

  “Living beings still leave skeletons even if Daedra don’t,” I say, and hold up a book. “And according to this book I found just laying around here near the entrance, skeletons don’t need be animated with the souls of who they once were. The Worm Cultists use minor Daedric spirits to animate most of their undead.”

  “Fascinating,” Merry says in a very non-fascinated tone of voice.

  “Funny you should mention Worm Cultists…” Eran says, pointing at a hovering figure in the next room. “Because I think I recognize their favorite robes.”

  “It’s so nice of the bad guys to all use the same tailor,” I say.

  “Perhaps we should have guessed that Worm Cultists were a possibility here,” Merry says, setting the closest one on fire.

  We fight our way past the necromancers and their undead minions. I sense a Skyshard tucked away in a corner. All things considered, this might have been here since before this ruin was pulled into Coldharbour.

  The leader of this cell of Worm Cultists is an Altmer woman we find at an altar probably performing some sort of ritual that I don’t feel like letting her complete. (To be fair, considering how many cultists I interrupt in the middle of performing rituals, it’s likely that cultists spend quite a lot of time performing rituals.)

  “Well, at least the mortals we’re killing here will stay dead,” Eran says.

  I chuckle darkly. “They’ve already pledged their souls to Molag Bal. They’re not leaving. Ever. They’ll return as Vestiges, and if they’re fortunate, Molag Bal won’t torture them much for their incompetence.”

  “I do not understand why people would pledge their souls to gods that would mistreat their servants in such a way,” Merry says.

  “They’re probably under the mistaken impression that Molag Bal will actually reward them for their devotion,” I say.

  “What, like how he ‘rewarded’ Aelif by making her huge and scaly?” Eran says. “Right before we killed her anyway?” He pauses. “She’s going to be somewhere in Coldharbour, too, isn’t she.”

  “Yep, most likely,” I say.

  “And we might have to kill her again?” Eran continues.

  “Possible,” I say.

  “What about every other worshipper of this realm’s god that we’ve killed?”

  I shrug. “Could happen.”

  “This is not reassuring me,” Eran says. “I really don’t want to have to kill High Kinlady Estre for a third time.”