Sees-All-Colors is still not back at 100%, but feeling strong enough after some more Restoring Light and potions to come along with me, Merry, Eran, and Farry for the moment. I don’t protest. There is Meridia shit around here, after all, and I’m still down a person. (I wish she were half as good a healer as Gelur, though.)

  Fortunately, the way inside the Ayleid ruin is right next to the wayshrine by the shattered bridge. The formerly-sealed passage leads into a chamber that’s as much Coldharbour as it is Ayleid. A sluggish waterfall of azure plasm flows in from a crack in the far wall to pool on the floor. Too high up to reach without levitation or serious climbing equipment, or we could have saved ourselves some trouble and just come in that way.

  There’s a moderately large tree holding what looks like a Light of Meridia beneath its roots. At a touch, one of the roots lifts and allows me to take the shiny blue rock.

  A male voice speaks from a projection on a landing looking over the room. It’s the same guy who was telling me to jump off the ledge above the Library of Dusk. The one who was too rude to introduce himself or explain why we should trust him enough to jump off a ledge just because he said so.

  “I’ve been waiting for centuries,” the mer says, among some other babbling. He speaks passably coherent Tamrielic, archaic but not so archaic that it sounds like he’s spent millennia in solitary confinement while in the outside world, Bretons felt the need to invent the circumflex.

  “If you’re the Ayleid we were told about, it’s more than centuries,” I say. “But who knows how long it felt for you. If it only felt like centuries, then count yourself fortunate.”

  “Meridia foretold that you would come,” he says.

  “Uh-huh,” I say. “More like she hung around and waited for something to eventually happen. It’s not much of a prophecy to assume Molag Bal will eventually do something annoying and that someone might show up to try to make him stop being annoying.”

  He finally bothers to introduce himself with the long name that I can’t remember. Upon pressing him, he notes that I can call him simply Dynar, to which I happily oblige.

  The Ayleid king Dynar is alive because Molag Bal wanted to keep him around to torture him because he’s a Meridia worshipper and he’s really got a beef with Meridia for some reason. Dynar is speaking to me through a projection from deeper inside his prison and considers it to be a foregone conclusion that of course we’re here to rescue him. Why else would we have bothered to come to the ass end of Coldharbour where all the captured Meridia worshippers are forgotten?

  “Honestly, it was just kind of here,” I say. “The tower looked weird and I thought it likely something interesting was in it.”

  Eran clears his throat. “Yes, of course we’re here to rescue you.”

  Dynar either ignores me or thinks I’m joking, and explains his situation a bit more. He’s imprisoned in a pillar of darkness and I need to use one or more of Meridia’s super-glowy magic rocks to free him from it. He’s been in confinement ever since the Ayleids went extinct with only Daedra for company. Damn.

  “Sorry, I haven’t spoken Ayleidoon since I insulted that bitch with the weather ball,” I say. “Your Tamrielic is definitely going to sound odd to anyone outside. The non-mer might not even catch it at all.”

  “Noted,” King Dynar (you don’t stop being a king just because you don’t have any subjects left alive, do you?) says. “It has been quite a long time since I have even heard my native tongue spoken aloud. I shall manage.”

  He thinks we’d be incapable of defeating Molag Bal without his help. I’ll reserve judgment. (It’s more that I’m not sure whether we’re capable of defeating Molag Bal with his help and the thought that his help still only improves the odds by a fraction of a percent. Right, not thinking about how this is totally a hopeless endeavor, lalalaaaaaa…)

  It’s so dark inside that we need to use a Light of Meridia to find our way. (Rather than trying to make anyone hold the thing and fight, Merry just levitates it around with us. Hopefully he won’t need the minuscule amount of magicka that takes.) Even Farry is uneasy about this much darkness, and she’s a Shadow Walker.

  “After spending my life in the shadows, it’s funny how even that light is comforting,” Farry says, looking off at the three doors leading out of the room and one exit that’s sealed. “Which way?”

  “We’ll probably need to go down every route to open the sealed door,” I say. “That’s just the way these things go. So let’s start with… this way.”

  I pick the rightmost exit and head into a garden full of wildlife typical of Valenwood, but blue and even more hostile than usual. (If that’s even possible.) We collect a red crystal from the end that Dynar’s voice says we’ll need for something. (I’d imagine if he couldn’t do the echoy voice from thin air thing before he got imprisoned, it was a high priority thing to figure out how to do once he wound up here.)

  Through the next door, we enter an icy cave full of Frost Atronachs. We take a third red crystal there, and taking it causes an immediate change in the cavern, filling it with lava and Flame Atronachs. Stupid weird magic. (“Weird magic” now refers to any magic that makes no fucking sense.)

  Lastly, we go into a library full of mad, highly aggressive Soul-Shriven. They’re honestly more annoying to fight than Atronachs and plant things due to being more unpredictable, but at least they’re so consumed with fury that they don’t do anything creative.

  “You don’t seem inclined to be showing these people mercy,” Eran says.

  I shrug. “They’re Soul-Shriven, and they don’t even seem capable of speech as they are. They’ll respawn later, for better or worse.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Eran frowns at the group of hostiles we’d just slain. “Now I kind of feel even worse about it.”

  “That’s just the Oblivion talking,” I say. “Ignore it and move on. Everyone dead here is damned regardless of what you do. Including me. And I’m planning on punching the God of Schemes hard enough to cough up my soul. If I manage to knock loose anyone else’s souls, so much the better.”

  We collect another red crystal from the library. The Soul-Shriven are still mad, but become less aggressive when we take it. Weird magic amplifying their hostility? I’m not going to think too hard about this.

  With the three crystals in sconces in the room before the sealed door, we’re able to get into the inner prison. The Lightless Oubliette, as the Ayleid calls it. (Nobody’s going to actually know what an oubliette is. He’s likely to get blank looks from Orcs, to be sure. I hope he doesn’t try to give any speeches until he’s better acquainted with the vernacular.)

  Next up, guess what? It’s time for a stupid Ayleid light puzzle! I completely expected to encounter one of these here. Look at that, I’m as prophetic as Meridia. These particular crystals (and Ayleids did love their crystals) are especially slow to rotate and it’s difficult to tell which way the light is pointing.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Farry says, marveling far too much at the inane crystals while not being nearly as good at helping to solve them as Ilara-daro.

  “We have,” Merry says, rotating yet another crystal. “Entirely too many times.”

  “And they are never in the correct position to start with,” Eran says, poking another one and frowning at it. “Except this one.” He slowly rotates it back around the way it had started off at.

  With the stupid light puzzle solved and the shadowy crystal whatevers destroyed, the Ayleid king is freed and by Malacath his armor is incredibly shiny gold. It’s almost disgusting. He has ridiculously huge shoulder guards like wings, and a helmet with two prongs that look a bit like a nix-hound’s mandibles.

  “You’re looking well,” I say. “If you need help working out your tight muscles after having spent like three thousand years in one position, I can put you in a touch with a good masseuse.”

  “You know a good masseuse?” Merry asks.

  “No,” I say. “But I know people who are capable of recommending a good masseuse if I ask.”

  “I do not believe that will be necessary,” Dynar says, attempting to stretch in the most dignified manner possible. “I am feeling quite well now, and also quite eager to leave this place. I will open a portal to the Hollow City.”

  “Sure,” I say. “That’ll save a little time and effort.”

  Dynar opens a portal and we all step through, and head up to find the Groundskeeper waiting for us.

  “So,” I say. “I have to ask. You referred to it as the Hollow City. Was it always called that?”

  “Its original name has been forgotten,” Dynar says.

  I frown. “But you were here when it got thrust into Coldharbour, weren’t you? Surely you know what it was called then.”

  The Groundskeeper interjects. “Names have power. The name of the city was sacrificed in order to protect it. It is now hollow and nameless, and Molag Bal cannot touch it.”

  “Okay, so it’s just weird magic,” I say. “Got it.”

  The Groundskeeper is a very wise woman as she merely sighs and doesn’t argue about it. “Yes. It is, as you say, ‘weird magic’.”

  “Hey, I’m just happy to know there’s an actual reason for it even if the reason doesn’t make sense,” I say. “It’s really annoying when there’s so many underlying questions that I just know will never get a satisfactory answer.”

  A number of members of the expedition have made their way back to the city in the meantime. The city might be “Hollow” but it’s no longer quite as empty. Colors asks around and we’re pointed to a building the Fighters Guild have claimed for a guildhall. When we go in, the various fighters are arguing about what they should do, but stop when they see Sees-All-Colors come in.

  “Colors!” exclaims that Breton knight whose name I’ve forgotten. “It’s good to see you survived. Maybe you can get us on track again.”

  “It seems against all odds that I am standing here before you,” Colors says. “One small twist in the current and I might have been lost to the depths or mired in dark roots.”

  A lengthy discussion ensues and we recount everything that happened since we arrived in Coldharbour. Needless to say, there’s quite a bit of surprise that we found an actual, live Ayleid. (As opposed to what you’d normally encounter, which would be dead Ayleids.)

  I do have some advice to give. “Remember, everyone. Take mental health breaks. This is far more important than you realize, here. It’s okay to step back and take a breather so that you can replenish your strength, and your mental strength is no exception. Keep an eye on yourself and your friends, and if you notice anyone starting to act strangely, pull them back and figure out what’s going on. We can’t afford to have someone get mind controlled, possessed, emotionally manipulated, or deceived.”

  “It would be nice not to have a repeat of the Tower of Lies,” agrees one of them.

  “And no bravado!” I emphasize. “I don’t care how awesome you think you are. A real badass can admit that Daedra are dangerous and need to be dealt with cautiously. We don’t need any situations in which someone felt something was wrong but didn’t speak up about it because they weren’t sure about it, didn’t want to bother anyone, or thought they could handle it.”

  I do not trust this place. There’s no guarantee that Molag Bal can’t hear us here, and even if he can’t, I won’t be surprised if Meridia is watching too. I won’t feel like I can really speak freely until I am back on Nirn.

  To that end, once the boring meeting is over, I drag the Ayleid king back to the wayshrine and teleport us to Dra’bul. Hopefully some sunlight and booze will make him less uptight.

  “To think you have the freedom to come and go as you please…” Dynar muses, looking up at the green canopy in such a way that I think his giant hat is about to fall off.

  “I had to set up anchor points in both realms, but yeah, it’s fucking amazing.” I gesture to him to follow and head into the stronghold.

  “This is your home?” Dynar says politely. “It’s very… rustic.”

  I chuckle. “It’s… I like having the open sun overhead and the green all around.”

  “I understand,” Dynar says.

  “And now that we’re away from the prying eyes and ears of Daedra, I’ve got something I need to tell you.” I pull off my helmet.

  “You… are not an Orc,” Dynar states the obvious.

  Should I actually tell him? Risk assessment of anyone who shouldn’t know finding out because of him seems pretty low. Also, who the fuck else am I going to commiserate with over being the last of a lost race and having been imprisoned in Coldharbour for thousands of years?

  “Come to my longhouse and sit down with some food and drink,” I say. “This is going to take a while and you probably haven’t had a good meal in a while.”

  …

  “So you’re Indoril Nerevar…” Dynar says.

  “I’m Neri gro-Drublog now,” I say. “The name was given to me by a god and everything.”

  “Strange to see you became a champion of Malacath, King of the Chimer,” Dynar says. “Did Azura not guide the one who rescued you?”

  He never lost faith in Meridia to get him out of there. In the end, Meridia had very little to do with it. Even if she was able to draw our expedition to the vicinity of the Hollow City, that was still only a small part of everything that led up to that point. I’ve found people often attribute to their god anything good that happens whether their god was involved or not. That’s kind of one reason why I appreciate Malacath.

  “It’s highly unlikely that anyone involved had anything whatsoever to do with Azura or her followers,” I say with a shrug. “And at this point, I no longer care. She can’t fault me for finding my own destiny in my new life. You, at least, didn’t actually die.”

  “Some small thing to be grateful for,” Dynar says with a small nod.