This story contains spoilers for the Bloodmoon Expansion for Morrowind. As it has been some time since that was released I expect that this is no longer concern but I thought I would mention it here anyway.


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Rashelle At Solstheim

by blockhead aka pcc



Chapter 1. Arrival



I think I was the only one on board the boat who was not grumbling. Apparently the Solstheim posting was viewed as a punishment or an exile by the soldiers of the Imperial Legion.

This ship had been chartered by the Legion to send a group of soldiers to Fort Frostmoth in Solstheim. I was the only civilian passenger.

I felt a sense of anticipation, there was something in the air.

For one thing, I was cool, nicely cool. The air had been slowly lowering in temperature over the course of the voyage. It was now cooler than the coolest cave I had ever been in.

For another, I was going to a strange new land. I love to explore. I had heard of Solstheim and its "snow". I had been told what snow was but I frankly felt it too incredible to believe. It sounded more like a crazed skooma dream ... but I wanted to see it.

Over the past half hour or so, the sky had been becoming more overcast. It was now a solid-looking gray.

The air became cooler still, and I felt like I had never felt before. Around me the men were beginning to shiver and complain and don fur cloaks. I had been forewarned so I had a fur from a creature called a "bear" in my pack, but I had no urge to wear it. I was fine ... feeling better than ever.

The air got cooler still, cooler than I ever thought it could get. A gentle cold breeze blew against my face and on my bare arms and it was ... wonderful.

"Brrr, woman, you must have some Nord in you! They like the cold."

This was logical. My tolerance ... no ... my *affinity* for cold made me suspect that my father had been a Nord. Since I was an orphan, I would never know.

I was pacing on the deck, sometimes stopping to stare off towards the horizon, when it happened.

"It" was millions of tiny white particles that floated gently down from the sky. They were the purest white imaginable. They could not be ashes.

I caught some in my hand. they faded away. I caught some more. they ... melted?

"Is ... is this snow?"

"Well of course, haven't you seen snow before?" replied one of the men.

"No."

"Oh. Sera, I am sorry."

"It's OK."

I smiled. So *this* was snow. I was enchanted.

"You won't like it so much when you have to dig out from it in the morning, or when you have to walk through it."

"You've been here before?"

"Yes, I'm returning from a month-long furlough. I've been stationed at Fort Frostmoth for almost a year now."

He fell into a discourse on the problems and dangers of Solstheim. From horkers to snow bears to spriggans to the semi-intelligent rieklings, there were many new dangers and problems for the hapless adventurer.

I sensed he was going to segue into the "protect the helpless female" monolog so I discreetly adjusted the sheath of the claymore that I wore on my back. It clanked against my ebony cuirass. The Breton spell-sword in the armor can take care of herself, sera.

"Erm, yes, well keep your wits about you and don't slip on the ice and you should be OK."

Ahead, a gray and white mass resolved itself: land.

The ship approached and I could make out a stone dock. The ground behind it, covered with short green grass of a sort not found in Vvardenfell, rose up until it met, further back, the mass of a stone Imperial fort.

To either side were ... trees, but of a sort I had never seen before. These must be the "pines" and "fir trees" that I had heard existed in colder climates.

The men were busy calling the role or standing in formation or some other such military thing so I was was the first one off the ship.

"Brrrr, so ... cold." said an Argonian dock worker. I pondered the wisdom of a creature used to the warm swamps working here in Solstheim.

I looked at the fort, then I glanced to the west. The snow covered wilderness beckoned, a lure I could not resist. I ran west: I could explore the fort some other time.

It was not long before a creature attacked me: some things never change, no matter where you go. I identified this one as a wolf. I knew of these from before. They were almost everywhere in the empire but Vvardenfell. It took almost no time to dispatch it.

It wasn't too much longer before I was attacked again, this time by a large bulky brown creature. It walked on four legs but stood up to attack. It growled, had wicked claws and was larger that I was. Still, Chrysamere was up to the task and in short time I had slain it.

There was something familiar about this creature. Then I realized why: its thick fur reminded me of the fur I had in my pack. This brown creature was therefore a "bear".

I continued along, wandering and exploring. I was heading north as well as west now. I reached an area where the ground was covered with snow. The snow in the air began to get thicker: there was more of it. The wind began to pick up, driving the snow into an intense mass of bright white opacity.

I was having trouble seeing. This was what they meant by "snow blind", a situation where daylight and whiteness were as effective as Stygian darkness at blinding one. The blizzard raged on and I stumbled in snow that was already over a foot high, with drifts almost as high as I was. I loved it!

At some point I crossed a small river that was covered with ice. I could walk on this ice, though I fell twice before I got the hang of it. I was amazed: the only ice I had ever seen before this was the stuff created by frost spells. Here was natural ice, strong enough to hold my weight.

Eventually, in a region with far less foliage, I reached the ocean. I was now somewhere on the west coast of Solstheim.

Most of the coastline of Solstheim is littered with impressive standing stones. They are huge and carved and placed, via means unknown, by ancient Nords. This was my first sight of them.

On a rock outcrop, I saw silhouetted the shape of a man. He stood and looked outward, towards the sea. Since the blizzard continued to blow, I found this behavior unusual. I carefully ascended the outcrop, which was slippery with spray and snow.

Now I could see the man clearly. he was a Nord clad all in a dark, almost black, armor that appeared to be made of wolf skins.

He turned to me, unconcerned at a stranger with a big sword and said "The sea, never has there been a maiden so beautiful or so unforgiving."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I am Thormoor Gray-Wave and I have been cursed. Six months ago I was at the rudder of the ship, not far from here. I fell asleep and we crashed against some rocks. Almost all on board were killed.

"A seer who survived the wreck cursed me with eternal wakefulness as punishment. I have not been able to sleep since that day, not a wink, not even a cat nap. I have tried potions, spells, and other things. Nothing worked."

The wind and the waves crashing on the shore were the only sounds.

"If only I could get the seer, Geilir the Mumbling, to rescind this curse."

"Maybe I could help?" I asked.

"Aye, lass, that would be a great thing if you could do it. I've suffered so. Maybe you could talk to him and convince him."

I nodded.

"His cave lies in that direction. It is not terribly far. The entrance is a low snow-covered mound."

He pointed.

"Right. I'm on it."

The blizzard began to taper off into a light snowfall as I traveled. On the way I was attacked by two Nord women. At first I was overconfident, as they were armed only with daggers. When the first dagger bit into my arm I realized that I had underestimated matters. The frost enchantment hurt, even with my affinity to cold, and the blade itself was more damaging than it looked. I also realized that these women were skilled with short blades.

Chrysamere chopped into the first one. She screamed and was down, although not yet dead. I kicked her while swinging my sword at the second one. She dodged but the blade still cut into her.

She came at me and I brushed the dagger aside with Chrysamere.

"Why are you attacking me?" I shouted.

"You will die where you stand!" she said as she raised her dagger and rushed at me.

I ran her through.

The first one must have quaffed a potion because she was up and on the attack again. I kicked her back while I pulled my blade from the second one.

I parried and my swing forced her back.

She came at me again and again. I simply parried and blocked. Maybe she'd calm down and stop.

She didn't.

I finally kicked her hand: her dagger went arcing though the air, quite a ways. She ran for the corpse of her compatriot, obviously intending to employ her dagger.

My booted foot smashed down on the weapon.

She stopped and glared at me.

"Why?" I asked. "Who are you?"

She aimed a kick. I dodged. Since I had to move my feet to do it, she dove for the dagger and snatched it up. She was on the attack again. I guess she just was not going to talk.

I dispatched her. It bothered me, not knowing why these two had wanted to kill me. I didn't think they were bandits.

I healed my arm with a spell and then examined the corpses: they both were wearing fur shirts that were very similar in appearance, as if they were some sort of uniform. Boots and brown pants completed the ensemble. I inspected one of the nasty cold-enchanted daggers. It was a curious construction in that the hilt had no cross-piece and that the blade was not much longer than the hilt. For its size it was rather effective. I stowed one in my pack.

I continued on my way and soon found a snow covered cave. I sheathed my sword and carefully entered.

The inside of cave looked as if it were entirely made from ice. I was astounded. I touched the wall: it was pleasingly cold. It *was* ice. Perhaps Solstheim was so cold that there were layers of ice in the ground as if it were merely another form of rock? Fascinating!

I progressed along the tunnel of ice. It went downhill until it opened into a cave that had some furniture, a few torches stuck into the floor, and one occupant.

He was a Nord man, with long, light brown, hair. He studied me warily. This was fair, as I had just barged into his home uninvited.

"Excuse me. I am Rashelle. Are you Geilir The Mumbling?"

He chuckled.

"I haven't mumbled since back in school as a lad, yet I have a name for life."

I grinned.

"I am sorry. I come here on behalf of a man who has not been able to sleep for six months."

He frowned and said; "He caused the deaths of everyone on board but myself and my friend."

"He said it was an accident."

"Aye, lass, it was: the fool fell asleep at the helm. We struck rocks and the ship sunk like a stone. I dragged him to the shore, although I almost decided not to. I let him live but I put a curse on him: he will never sleep again."

I remained silent. Sometimes I say more by not saying a thing. I stared.

"They died because of him."

I was mute.

"Look lass, he did a terrible thing."

Silence was my only reply.

"Of course, we all make mistakes," he said, "It's just ... that one was such a big mistake."

I silently reflected on mistakes that I had made in the past.

"How about this, lass? If you can find my friend for me, I'll lift the curse on Thormoor Gray-Wave."

"Your friend?"

"Oddfrid White-Lip. She is my only friend these days. Some draugr attacked us here today and they took her away. My powers as a seer are, sporadic: they do not work on demand, so I did not see the attack ahead of time."

I nodded.

"My visions indicate that the draugr took her to Kolbjorn Barrow. It is to the far south east of here, not far from the Imperial fort. It's a little bit west of the fort, actually"

He must mean Frostmoth.

"What are draugr?"

"They are undead: they are the mummified corpses of Nords that have become animated. They are a black in color, with eyes that glow red: they are hard to see so they can catch you by surprise. They seem to lurk in every barrow in Solstheim. They attack and they kill: they feed upon the living. Beware of them."

I nodded and departed.

I made a long journey back to the fort. I fought many creatures along the way, including one of a type that I had been warned about, a spriggan.

The creature was of a strange appearance. It resembled some weird cross between a woman and ... a tree. Its face was human but the eyes were devoid of any humanity, staring blankly as it used its large claws to slash at me.

Taking a hint from the resemblance to trees, I hit the spriggan with a fireball. It screamed and slashed at me again. While the spell did some damage, it was not enough to kill the creature. I chopped with Chrysamere. The sword connected but the spriggan was tough ... with flesh almost like wood in hardness.

Nothing but to chop and duck and chop some more. Blood like red sap flowed from its wounds. Eventually I killed it.

I paused to take a breather. This creature had been ... annoying.

One does not expect a just-killed creature to return to full health and attack again, yet that is just what the fetcher did. Suddenly there was a flash of light and I was staggering back from a slash of the creature's claws, cursing and dodging a second slash.

I slammed down a potion and fought. I killed it a second time.

It rose from the dead again ... larger this time. I was beginning to come close to panic. Could this thing ever be killed for good?

Finally, I killed it for a third time. This time it stayed dead. I like many things about Solstheim, but spriggans are not one of them.

Upon sighting the Fort, I turned and strode west.

I found a barrow, a Nord tomb. The entrance was a pile of roughly-hewn dark stone blocks with an ornate door. I slowly puzzled through the ancient Nordic runes on the door, whose shape and meaning were unlike modern Tamrielic, and determined that this was the Stormpfund barrow.

This was not the one I was looking for but I entered anyway. The black stone made the interior of the barrow even darker than that of a Vvardenfell tomb.

I met my first draugr and also an animated half rotted undead wolf. Later I found out that these are called "bone wolves".

I fought them.

Afterwards, I found a nice-looking Nordic silver claymore. As I didn't want to lug it all around the island, I left it there. I found some gold and some gems: those I took.

In the back of the barrow was something ... interesting. It looked like ice, but it was harder than ice ... much harder. I could not crack it with Chrysamere. I peered through its translucency and saw a skeleton inside. This strange ice thing was some sort of coffin.

I exited the barrow and continued on my way. The ground sloped up and I ascended a hill. The hill was topped by a circle of standing stones. I saw nothing of interest in the circle so I continued walking west, down the other side of the hill.

I found another barrow. The runes on the door indicated that I had found the Kolbjorn Barrow. There were no people here, save for the undead. I fought through these as I had the ones in the previous barrow.

I did not find the woman. As those draugr had only carried Oddfrid White-Lip off that day, I should have seen her or her recently-killed corpse. Maybe he had envisioned the wrong tomb?

On a rock in the center of the barrow lay a skull. Geilir couldn't have meant that this was his friend, could he?

The skull had no dust on it so it could not have been there for more than a few days. I put it in my pack.

My return to Geilir's cave was uneventful, save that the snow had stopped and the sun was shining brightly. The glare of the sun off the snow took some getting used to, but it was all still very beautiful.

"Rashelle, did you find her?"

"It depends ... "

I took the skull from my pack and said, "Is this her?"

His face lit up and he exclaimed, "Oddfrid, my friend!"

He took the skull from my hands. He looked so happy that I could not remain angry for having been sent on such a pointless quest.

"Oh thank you for rescuing her!"

He then spoke to the skull. "Oh Oddfrid, it's so good to be with you again!"

I remained silent.

"Oddfrid sees things," he said to me. "Sometimes she tells me them. She is grateful to you and will tell you of your future."

I nodded. I didn't really know what to think, yet alone what to say.

Geilir held the skull in both hands. He twitched and his eyes rolled up. In a different voice he began to speak.

"The time for the hunt is near. You are both hunter and hunted."

I didn't think he was faking it. It was rather creepy.

Geilir's trembled for a few seconds and then blinked.

"It always gives me the shakes to do that," he said in his normal voice.

I nodded.

"Here Rashelle, she wishes to communicate with you directly."

I raised an eyebrow and took a step back.

"She says it's, ummm, 'girl talk.'"

"Could you put the skull on the ground? I don't want to drop it."

He did so. I crouched down, took a deep breath to prepare myself, and put two hands on the skull, as he had done before.

When I had touched the skull before, to put it in my pack and again to hand it over, there had been no sense of any magic or anything else about it. This time it was different: there was a mental contact and the skull was talking to me, directly in my mind without sound! That Nord was not so crazy after all.

"Rashelle, Thank you for rescuing me and bringing me back to my Geilir. I know this is very strange for you but I really do appreciate it."

"You are welcome ... and yes this is rather unusual."

"As for a more personal glimpse into your far distant future, Rashelle ... there will be true love. Someone ... someone tall ..."

"... dark and handsome?" I interrupted. That was the oldest fortune-teller line in the book. This had gone from strange to ludicrous.

"No ... tall and light ... yes, lightness. They wait for you, though they do not realize it yet. That is all I can say."

I sensed that the conversation was over. I removed my hands from the skull and stood up.

"Can you please lift the curse now?"

"Of course, lass."

"Thank you."

I departed and returned to the coast. I found the outcrop but I did not see Thormoor Gray-Wave standing there. Had he disappeared? Had he fallen off the rock in a sudden onset of sleep?

I scurried up the big rock as fast as I could and discovered that he was still there, but not standing. He was lying there so peacefully, a smile on his tired-looking face. His chest slowly rose and fell as he breathed. The curse had indeed been lifted, perhaps instantaneously and without warning.

I was concerned that he would fall off of the outcrop in his sleep. I was also worried that there might be a creature in Solstheim capable of climbing and then attacking him. I tried to shake him awake but he remained in a deep slumber.

It was nearing the end of the day. For the sake of his safety, I decided to remain there. I ate some food from my pack and watched the sun set.

That was a very interesting start right of the bat, with the usual pace we've come to know of you.
I was especially touched by the end, where Rashelle watches over the sleeping Nord. It seems like the right thing to do.

Ahaha...now she´s out in the cold! I have great confidence in Rashelle´s abilities to sort things out in Solstheim. Besides she seems to be able to endure cold pretty good..hmmm. This will be exciting....continue when you can , I´ll be waiting....

Well there's certainly a lot of things to do in Solstheim so I'm sure Rashelle will keep busy. I found this opening wonderful. Her ignorance of winter and snowy things will make each of her new discoveries very interesting.

Keep it going!

Wow, first post and she's already been attacked by and had to kill a pair of psychopaths... Solstheim isn't nice.

I'd make some joke about women and sharing, but if you haven't watched Red vs Blue you wouldn't get it, and of you have then I don't need to. Oh well, years from now when they find a cure for fatal sword wounds they'll find their frozen corpses and revive them, then maybe we'll finally learn why they were so angry. :\

No, it's a tough place. Many of critters/people native to Solstheim could have easily cleaned Dagoth Ur's clock.


sharing? Now I'll be confused all day. Could you fill me in? I don't know that show..


jack cloudy wrote:

When not being misled by mad former goddesses, Rashelle tends to do the Right Thing.

Again, thank you all for the comments: they really help me to keep on with the story. Which reminds me, chapter 2 is fighting me but a part that is several chapters in the future is progressing nicely.

Red vs. Blue is a comedy series of Halo produced by a group called Rooster Teeth. It basically follows two groups of Spartans who gripe complain, and otherwise hate their jobs as they "fight" one another through all five seasons. There is profanity and ineptitude, but it's darn funny most of the time.

I like it well enough, so does Dad, just not the cussing parts. "So now I guess we have two bases in a box canyon....."

The unofficial leader of the Blue team, Church, says to the nymphomaniac, Tucker, that having two women on their team is not a good thing.

Church: "Tucker, I know what you're thinking, and it's not gonna happen."

Tuck:"Aw, why not?"

Church:"Because girls can't share anything, not even an apartment. Everytime girls live together, within six months they all hate each other and somepdy gets stuck with a twelve-hundred dollar phone bill. That's fact."

Tucker: "Aw, let them fight. As long as we get to watch them making up, who cares? We can even record it and sell copies to the reds!"

Chapter 2. Valbrandr



Now that the sun had set, I was actually cold. I left Thormoor briefly to get some firewood. There were no trees in the immediate vicinity and I did not want to stray too far from him but I found sufficient driftwood nearby. I returned, made two piles of wood and lit one with a fire spell. From my pack I drew the bear fur and with it I covered Thormoor. The fire kept me warm.

I slept on and off, waking and putting more wood on the flames as needed.

In the morning I attempted to shake him awake. He still would not wake up. I had to wake him somehow: I could not stay here forever and I did not want some beast to eat him. Finally, after removing and packing away my bear fur, I hit him with a mild shock spell. This was not a nice thing to do but I could think of no other way.

It worked: he jumped awake instantly.

"Are you all right? You slept like a log all night."

"Aye lass," he said as he stood up, "I just had the strangest dream about lightning ... say ... I SLEPT! You did it!"

He had a big grin on his face.

"Oh thank you Rashelle," he bellowed joyfully as he lifted up me a in bear hug.

"Thormoor," I said in an even but warning tone, "put me down please."

"Err, um, sorry," he said sheepishly.

He put me down.

"You should find a safer place to sleep. You could have fallen off the rock. Some climbing creature could have nabbed you."

"Aye, like those little rieklings ... they can climb. I will find a safer place before sleep overtakes me again."

"Thormoor; I hit you with a shock spell to wake you up. I am sorry, but there was no other way."

"Rashelle, It's all right. I understand."

I smiled.

"Thanks again, lass."

He departed.

With a frost bolt and a kick I put the fire out. I climbed down from the rock. I made an arbitrary decision and strode off to the East.

For some time I wandered though more of the beautiful snow-covered landscape of Solstheim. Even as I fought off the innumerable creatures that attacked, I marveled: this was so much prettier than Vvardenfell, whose coloration ranged from dull green to dull brown and into a spectrum of grays.

I had my first encounter with a riekling. He looked like a squat little blue man and he was riding a wild boar of some kind. Later on I learned that these animals are called frost boar. Of course the riekling attacked: he rode the boar towards me, brandishing a short lance.

I dodged the lance and slashed with Chrysamere. Wounded, he brought the boar around and charged. I met his charge and chopped down, cleaving him in two. The boar shook off its expired rider and then continued the attack on its own.

I dodged the nasty tusks and my blade tore into the boar's side. It was severely wounded and its blood gushed onto the snow, yet it squealed its anger and continued the fight.

My sword found its heart.

I inspected the dead riekling. He wore a little fur hat and clothes made from animal skins. He carried a shield and a torch in addition to the lance.

The shield was constructed of animal skins over a wood frame. For the little riekling it was almost a tower shield. For me it would function as a buckler.

I resumed my explorations. It was not snowing; the sky was actually a wonderful bright blue and the sun shone on the gorgeous Solstheim landscape.

Later, in an area with only a few patches of snow on the grass, I found a cluster of three standing stones. Someone must have used a serious feather spell to place them.

A Nord stood by the stones. As he made no hostile move I said: "Greetings. I am Rashelle."

"I am Ulfgar The Unending and I seek Sovngarde."

"Sovngarde?"

"Aye, my four brothers-in-arms and I were questing for it. We were getting close ... we could feel it. Alas, here in Brodir Grove one of our band, the sorcerer Grimkell, turned on us. He cast a spell that turned the others into these three stones that you see here."

He patted one of the stones.

"Here they remain."

I nodded. Now I knew how those particular stones had been placed. Odd that they did not resemble the original men: normally that sort of spell changes the substance, not the shape.

"Why were you not turned to stone as well?"

"The spell affected me, but not in the way that Grimkell had intended. I have become a sort of 'living stone' and do not age. You see, this happened five hundred years ago."

I believed him. I had encountered many strange things in my life and the events leading up to my becoming the Nerevarine had resulted in my own potential immortality. Divayth Fyr had told me that I could still be killed, but I would not age.

"I was able to kill the treacherous Grimkell, but my quest is unfinished. Legend has it that any Nord who finds the entrance to Sovngarde can dwell in its mead-filled halls forever."

I had noticed this obsession with mead on the part of other Nords. I'd never tried the stuff. Could it really be that good?

"I have been all across the Empire and back, but I cannot find the place! Once, my friends and I served Ysgramor, and counted ourselves among his 'Five Hundred Companions.' We helped drive the Elves out of Skyrim! We have earned our place in Sovngarde! If, in your travels, you discover the entrance to Sovngarde, let me know, and I will be forever in your debt. I have tried ... and failed."

"Ulfgar; I know nothing of that place, but if I ever find out about it I will tell you."

He nodded.

"My cave is right over there if you don't happen to catch me outside." He pointed and I could see the entrance.

I bid him good day and returned to my explorations.

I had not gone far when a naked Nord attacked me. He was yelling incoherently and was obviously crazy or drunk or both and he wanted to kill me. The trooper on the boat had mentioned bare-sarkers or berserkers: naked Nords, mad with cold and booze who ran around Solstheim, wantonly killing. What is it with Nords and getting naked?

It was a trivial matter to dispatch him. I'd heard that some berserkers carry nice weapons but this man had only a silver longsword.

I eventually found myself at the Fort. It had not been my intention to return there so soon: my wandering had led here. Since all Imperial forts had an Imperial Cult chapel, I would use this opportunity to obtain more alchemy ingredients. From the measure of the wildlife in Solstheim so far, it would be a good idea for me to make more potions.

The troopers were untalkative, gruff, and obviously in a foul mood. Something had put them off and the air was filled with a sullen tension.

I approached a trooper who tersely told me that Captain Falx Carius was in his office and that I should talk to him if I needed to talk so much. This bordered on rude. There had been an extra tone of resentment when he had mentioned the captain. What had the captain done to annoy the men so?

I introduced myself to another trooper and asked her where I could find the chapel. Even though we were both women, she was no friendlier then the man had been. She did point to a door, at least.

I thanked her, despite her manner, and headed for the indicated building.

I entered, noting that the decor of Imperial forts is always the same. Even the stone blocks looked the same. Were all forts built from the same quarry?

A soldier looked at me and, before I could say anything, pointed to the left and said "cult chapel."

I nodded and took the indicated direction.

I saw a friendly-looking Redguard man next to an Imperial altar. The usual Cult tapestries adorned the walls.

"Greetings, I am Joleen, how can the Nine Divines aid you?"

"I am Rashelle. I have need of ingredients. What have you for sale?"

It was quickly determined that he had the ingredients I desired. I bought all he had. I asked him if I could set up my alchemy equipment there for a few minutes so that I could brew some potions. He nodded and pointed to an empty area on a table.

I was setting up my alchemy equipment when in walked the soldier who I had talked to on the boat the day before.

"Hello again," I said.

"Why, hello there. Tired of the snow yet?"

So far he was already much more friendly than the other soldiers had been.

"No muthsera," I answered. "I love it! Snow is wonderful! And it's so nice and cool here in Solstheim!"

He smiled. "Well, I'm glad someone enjoys it; just avoid the yellow snow. By the way, I am sorry for not properly introducing myself while we were on the boat."

He then bowed and said "Trooper Procis Catraso at your service."

I smiled. His name was familiar somehow.

"I am Rashelle."

"Never could understand that alchemy stuff" he said as he gestured to my setup.

I cast a fire spell to get the fire under the calcinator started.

"Ser Catraso, alchemy is a girl's best friend."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Potions are very handy. They are life savers. Many ... "

Suddenly I remembered something and I interrupted myself.

"Your mother is Vala Catraso, who runs the Imperial cult altar in the Ald Ruhn Mages Guild!"

He grinned and nodded; "the very same."

We chatted briefly as I made the potions.

When I was through and starting to break down the equipment, I handed him a potion.

"Here, have this. It's a useful potion."

"It is clear, it looks like water," he said as he looked at at the vial in his hand, "What is it?"

"Restore Health potion."

"Oooo, thank you."

"You are welcome."

He pointed to another vial on the table, which contained an opaque black fluid.

"What's that one?"

"That one is only of interest to women. It's the reason why alchemy is a girl's best friend," I said as I scooped up the potion and placed it in my pack.

"Well, uhh, OK then. Good day Rashelle."

"Good day."

"Rashelle?"

I raised an eyebrow.

He lowered his voice and said "You wouldn't happen to have any booze on you, would you?"

My eyebrow remained raised. That was an unexpected question.

"During the time I was away on furlough, they made it a 'dry fort', no booze of any sort is allowed."

I actually had a small bottle of Cyrodiilic brandy. I had been saving it for a special occasion but I removed it from my pack and handed it to him; I don't know why.

"Thanks Rashelle. I'm not sure why the captain did that. he always seemed a decent sort. Here in this frontier it is good to be able to have a drink from time to time. To deny us even this little pleasure is just wrong."

I had to agree. Perhaps that is why the men (and women) were all in such bad morale?

He thanked me and left.

I stowed the last piece of equipment and put my pack on. I had enough potions now and was ready to go.

"Rashelle?", said Joleen from the other side of the room.

I looked over to where he was standing and raised an eyebrow.

"Err, never mind," he said.

I stared. Something was troubling him.

"It's nothing."

I nodded. I couldn't force him to talk about it.

I left the building and turned, getting my bearings. I saw an archway in the north wall of the fort and walked towards it.

The female trooper who had grudgingly given me directions earlier approached me and asked, "Where are you headed?"

I glared at her.

"Someplace," I said. I could be rude and sullen too.

"OK, I'm sorry I was rude before. It's just that there have been some bad things going on around here."

"The dry fort?"

"Yes, and some other problems. I am sorry. My name is Severia Gratius."

"I'm Rashelle."

"Rashelle, there may be a problem you could help me with."

I raised an eyebrow.

"There have been three recent incidents of moon sugar poisoning."

"Poisoning?"

"Yes, to one unaccustomed to moon sugar, a high enough dose is fatal, like a poison. Someone has been sneaking around and putting large doses of moon sugar in the wine or food of innocent people. In one instance, the victim almost died."

I nodded.

"The latest victim, Joleen at the Imperial Cult, actually says he caught a glimpse of the culprit. He said something about a man in a white covolian fur helm. I've never seen one of them in white before."

I nodded.

"We can't have people getting unwittingly doped up on moon sugar and I've got too many other things on my plate now to leave the fort. Could you investigate this matter and go stop the madman who is doing this?"

I nodded.

"Good. Bring me his hat as proof."

"proof?"

"that you've killed him."

Oh.

"I understand," I said. I didn't agree with her means. If I actually happened to find him, I would stop him in my own way.

She thanked me and walked away.

I returned to the Imperial Cult altar.

"Joleen, I've been asked to investigate a moon sugar poisoner. Severia says you were one of his victims?"

"Yes, Rashelle, I was. I was having a cup of wine and suddenly I felt funny. From the corner of my eye, I saw a man in a strange white covolian fur helm. He was singing a song ... a strange sort of song, about lanterns all aglow and a workshop in the snow. It had the sound of a children's song. He had a terrible singing voice. I'm not sure how much of what I heard was real or imagined."

Very strange.

"That's all I saw, Rashelle. I hope you catch him."

"Very well. Thank you Joleen."

"Rashelle?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"I was wondering if you could ... um ... help with an Imperial Cult matter."

"Perhaps. What can you tell me?"

"Well, you see Rashelle," he said almost nervously, "it's just that I've sent a, err, colleague of mine to do some missionary work up north at Thirsk."

I looked questioningly at him.

"It's a mead hall, run by the local Nords. It's apparently been there a long time. Marisa went up there to preach the Nine Divines to them.

"It has been over a fortnight since Marisa left. I have not heard from her since. I am worried about her."

I could see he was very concerned: was she more than a colleague?

"I shouldn't have sent her. She was enthusiastic about the task, but I wish she were here with me ... that is, err ..."

"You love her, don't you?"

He nodded glumly.

"Then I shall find her. Tell me where Thirsk is."

His face brightened.

"Thank you Rashelle!"

He told me the location of Thirsk and then he described Marisa.

"Right. I'm on it."

I left, again.

I exited the fort through the northern archway. There was a Nord just outside the arch, standing there. I wondered why he was there. Since the troopers had not chased him away he must not have been hostile.

"Greetings, I am Rashelle."

"I am Reinhardt Red-spear."

We chatted for a few minutes. He was actually a former member of a tribe up north, the Skaal tribe. At an early age he had desired to explore, so he left. Reinhardt had lived for some years by himself, so he was capable of handling the dangers of Solstheim.

He was looking for work and had contemplated joining the Legion but he was not sure that the military life was for him. Once you join the Imperial Legion you have to serve a two-year term so I could understand his concern.

He could read and write. He claimed to have some skill with numbers. These are good skills but apparently no one at the fort wanted to hire an accountant or scribe without experience.

The conversation was interesting and it was also rewarding in that I gained more information on Solstheim and its dangers.

"If I find a position for you, Reinhardt, I will let you know."

"Thank you Rashelle."

It was now late in the afternoon. I trekked north and east. I crossed a river, this one without ice, and ran into a group that consisted of three Nords, a Dunmer and a Breton woman. Unlike the berserkers, they wore clothing and armor. Like the berserkers, they all attacked on sight. These were some of the reavers that Trooper Catraso had mentioned back on the ship.

I handled them and continued on my way.

It was twilight when I found a house. There were colored lanterns hung outside on its walls. These gave it a festive appearance.

The dead Khajiit was not festive. I found him lying only a few paces from the house. The corpse was partially covered with snow. Packets of moon sugar in his clothing suggested a possible cause of death.

I searched the body and found a sheet of paper. On it was written what appeared to be a children's song or poem. The words were about an Uncle Sweetshare and giving candy away. Joleen had mentioned a silly song. Perhaps whoever lived in the house had some information as to the whereabouts or identity of the moon sugar poisoner. Perhaps the occupant was the actual poisoner.

I walked around the house until I found the door. I knocked.

"Come in," said the cheerful voice of a Breton man.

I opened the door and entered.

The man stood behind a table. He was a Nord, not a Breton. The house was a single room and there was no one else in the room. Why did this Nord have the voice of a Breton?

On the table was a full set of alchemy equipment. The equipment was of high quality but was poorly maintained. There were piles of moon sugar everywhere. There were packets of it on the table, the floor, the chairs. There were opened crates full of packets of the stuff. There were even piles of loose sugar on the floor. I sneezed: there must have been some in the air as well. I don't believe I'd ever seen this much moon sugar in one place before. It put both the Camonna Tong and the Sixth House to shame.

The man himself appeared friendly and harmless but I did not let that fool me. To live in this remote location in the hostile wilderness of Solstheim, he had to be able to defend himself.

He wore a white colovian fur helm.

Now, what were the odds of me just happening to stumble onto the moon sugar poisoner's home?

He began to sing, a song with silly words and lots of "he he, ha ho" in it. It was the song from the paper, more or less. I think he'd forgotten some of the words. He was horribly off-key and his singing voice suggested a Khajiit whose tail had been stepped on. Hearing a Breton voice coming from a Nord was rather disconcerting. Perhaps prolonged moon sugar usage had changed his voice?

I remained silent.

"Candy candy, he makes so much! Uncle Sweetshare has the magic touch!"

I finally had to interrupt him.

"Sera ..."

"please, call me Uncle Sweetshare! I spread happiness. Would you like to be happy?"

He tossed a packed of moon-sugar towards me and I reflexively caught it. This was seriously weird.

"I am Rashelle."

"A pleasure to meet you, Rashelle!"

"What happened to the Khajiit outside?" I said as I let the packet fall to the floor.

"Oh, that's M'nashi. He's a good kitty. He was very helpful to me. He enjoyed his sugar so much. I think he may have enjoyed it too much, poor fellow. We had a wonderful funeral for him: even the horkers came and sang."

"Sera ..."

"Please, call me Uncle!"

"Well then, Uncle, have you been poisoning people with moon sugar?"

"Oh no, I've been spreading happiness at the fort. Those cranky Imperials need some happiness. Joleen, the poor fellow, has lost his squeeze so I gave him some candy, ho ho he he!"

The man was obviously touched by Sheogorad: in other words, quite mad.

"Uncle, you must stop doing that."

"Hmpf, are you a grump like those Imperials? They need some fun, they do, oh yes, ho ho!"

"Sera,"

"Please, call me uncle."

"I have been ordered to stop your poisoning, by any means necessary. This includes killing you."

He stopped. He stared at me. His eyes took in my adamantium boots, my dark brotherhood greaves, my ebony cuirass. Predictably, his examination lingered at chest-level for an extra second. He then continued to raise his gaze to see the hilt of my claymore and the deadly look in my eyes. I think that, in my own special way, I had just gotten through to him.

"Well, then I guess I'll have to keep my happiness to myself."

He paused, then a smile came to his face: "There will be more for me, ho ho, he he!"

"Very well Uncle; I am going now."

"Rest assured, Rashelle, I will no longer give moon sugar to anyone in the fort."

I nodded and went outside. I could only hope that he had wits enough to keep his word.

I suppose I could have stolen his white helm, or asked for it, so that I could provide Severia with "proof". I saw no reason to do that. I had stopped the poisoning: whether Severia believed me or not was of no consequence.

It was dark now: twilight was over. It was time to find a place to sleep.

I fought more rieklings and a spriggan before I found a barrow. I would clean this one out and then have a safe place to stay for the night.

There was a Nord man sitting by the barrow, his back resting against the door frame. Since he did not spring up and attack, I hailed him.

"Hello, I am Rashelle," I smiled as I walked towards him.

"I am Ingmar."

He looked to be in his late teens, perhaps a bit young to be off on his own in this wilderness. He wore armor that was a mix of fur and some sort of chain mail of a type that I had not seen before. Later I learned that this was Nordic mail and that it was common in Skyrim and Solstheim.

His armor was damaged. Now that I was closer I could see that there was blood seeping through his cuirass. His face was pale even for a Nord.

"You are wounded."

"Aye, lass, I ..."

"Hold still, I will heal you."

He nodded.

I crouched down and cast a healing spell. Through the rents in his armor I could see the wounds close up and disappear.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. What happened?"

"This is the Valbrandr barrow."

I nodded. And?

"Inside lies the Valbrandr draugr. In order for my tribe to recognize me as a man, I must slay that draugr. I went in there, just before, and it almost killed me. I fled outside. I was resting here, waiting to see if I would live or die, when you came by."

"Well, I can just clear that barrow out for you and ... "

"No, I must do it or I will never be a man!"

I raised an eyebrow.

"You are an Outlander, you do not understand our ways. Every boy in the Skaal must do this."

Reinhardt by the fort had mentioned the Skaal.

"They are my people," continued Ingmar. "We live far to the north of here, further north than Thirsk."

I nodded.

"How about this, sera," I said. "I go in first. It attacks me. You then come in and have at it while I keep it distracted. That way, you will have actually struck the death blow."

"Aye lass, it is a good plan."

I helped him up.

"Ready?

Ingmar drew his sword.

"Let's go"

I quaffed a potion, opened the door, and went in. A draugr had been waiting by the door and it attacked me. I blocked with an elbow and gave it a kick. My sword remained sheathed.

A battle cry behind me indicated that Ingmar had entered the barrow. Nimble for an undead, the draugr whirled and kicked me in the stomach. My cuirass absorbed the force of the kick. Ingmar's sword chopped into the creature.

A bone wolf appeared and attacked. Sword now drawn, I directed my attentions to this second attacker.

The draugr continued to rain blows upon me as I fought the bone wolf. It hurt but I endured it. Ingmar was certainly taking his time: I would have had the draugr killed by now.

As Chrysamere clove through the bone wolf, I saw the draugr's head fly past me.

I turned and saw Ingmar place his foot upon the fallen, now headless, draugr. "I did it!" he shouted.

He beamed.

I grinned.

"So, mission accomplished?"

"Yes Rashelle, thanks to you! Now I am a man!"

"Congratulations."

"Rashelle, I am going to leave all the barrow's treasure alone. Take whatever you want: it is yours. If you are ever in the Skaal Village, you must visit me at my house."

I was touched.

"Thank you Ingmar."

"Well, I'm off to the village."

I nodded. He left.

I took a few minutes to go through the barrow. We had only fought the creatures in the entrance area so I had to clean the rest of the place out.

That done, I took a healing potion and munched some food from my pack.

I curled up on a large flat slab of rock in the center of the chamber and fell asleep.

Ahhh Imperial Legionaires... they're all so lazy so they get Rashelle to fix all their little problems. Good thing Rashelle is so nice or else there would be a lot of disappointed Legionaires.

Excellent update, blockhead.

Uncle sweethead..ehh no blockhead! It´s women like Rashie they need in Solstheim! An enloyable read as always, and I really like this Procius Catraso, hope we´ll learn more about him....

Chapter 3. Marisa



When I left the barrow it was shortly after dawn. I admired the snowy landscape as I walked north. The morning sun made golden highlights on the snow-covered trees. Again I was overwhelmed by the beauty of Solstheim.

The first attack of the day was a riekling.

A few minutes later a familiar looking Nord woman attacked me. She could have been a sister of those two that had attacked me the day before. Like the other two, she wore a fur shirt and the brown pants. Her boots were leather.

Unlike the two women yesterday, she was wearing a cuirass made from the carapace of a druegh.

She cast a spell to summon an ancestor ghost. It was just too bad for her that the ancestor ghost is the weakest of all of the summoned undead. One slice of Chrysamere and it dissolved away to nothing.

Apparently she didn't have enough magicka to summon another one because she took out a dagger and came at me. The weapon was familiar: it was one of those frost-enchanted daggers.

The two women yesterday had not been a isolated incident. The appearance of this third woman indicated to me that there was a group or faction of some sort. This group seemed to consist of Nord women who were murderously hostile to me, or perhaps to outlanders in general. It was a puzzle.

I dispatched her and continued on my way.

Another one of those women, two berserkers, and a several rieklings later I came upon a lake that was entirely frozen over with ice. I stood there for a long time in silent awe. Ahead of me stretched the geometrically flat expanse of light grey with piles of white snow on it. I had never before seen this much ice in one place. The frozen river that I had crossed a day or two ago was nothing compared to this. From what I had been previously told, I knew that this was Lake Fjalding, whose surface remained covered with ice year-round.

From the directions I'd been given by Joleen, the fact that I had reached the lake indicated that I was too far to the west. I needed to go east to find Thirsk ... but the ice fascinated me.

I carefully took a step onto the lake. From the other day I had the technique of walking on it but I walked gingerly in case I fell through: the combined weight of my armor and sword was considerable.

The ice supported me. It did not even creak under the weight. Thus reassured, I took some more steps. Here I was, actually walking on a huge sheet of ice. I was enthralled.

There was a white creature that I first thought was a small mound of snow until it moved. I remembered Reinhardt Red-spear explaining the various creatures of this region: what I had mistaken for snow was a horker. Reinhardt had explained that horkers are one of the few creatures in Solstheim that do not attack on sight.

The horker had three tusks; two large ones jutting out from the underside of its odd-looking mouth and one smaller one jutting from the top. The mouth was a sort of pinkish tube, as it was the only part of the horker not covered by fur. The head of the horker was slightly lighter than the rest of the body. Two small black eyes peered out from the head. There was no perceptible neck. The body was a light grey color. From the location where one would expect forelegs to be, the horker had two flippers. The flippers were of the same light grey as the body aside from black "points" at the tips.

There were no back legs: instead the body just tapered down until it it formed a flat tail, resembling a fish tail but aligned horizontally rather than vertically. The tail itself was black, matching the tips of the flippers.

It was by a combination of the flippers and an undulation of its body that the horker moved. I had been told that they could swim far faster than they could travel on land.

I approached the horker. It was so cute! Since it did not attack I crouched down and began to pet it. It didn't seem to mind. It made a sound like a groaning but not exactly. It raised a flipper and rolled to one side. I rubbed its belly. It made the sound again, but in a way that indicated pleasure. It waved the raised flipper.

Horkers are adorable!

While I could have stayed longer, I had made a promise to find Marisa. With regret, I left my new-found horker friend and walked off of the ice and back onto the land. Looking to the east and up, I could see a building on top of a hill. I did not know what a mead hall was supposed to look like, but the building was certainly large enough to be a tavern or an inn.

I ascended the hill.

As I neared the door I did not hear the expected sound of Nords partying. Of course, that would be explained by the fact that it was still morning.

After pausing to admire the view from the hill down to the lake, I opened the door and stepped inside. The inside was dark, very dark. There were torches here and there but after the bright sunlight on the whiteness of the snow, my eyes needed to adjust.

"Greetings," said a Nord woman all in fur armor. Her helm concealed her hair. "I am Ulfrun. Welcome to Thirsk. You should speak to Skjoldr Wolf-runner, our chieftain, as he wishes to meet all new arrivals. He's the one back there in that corner."

She pointed to a corner. A Nord man stood there. Near him was a bar. A woman stood behind the bar.

"I'm Rashelle."

"Good to meet you Rashelle."

She paused.

"One other thing," she said in a much quieter voice, "Watch out for Erich the Unworthy. He's the one over there."

She discreetly pointed to one of the men and continued; "He's a swine."

"Is he, now?"

"Yes, he and I ... that is ... well, he's a swine."

I nodded and then, in my usual subtle way, got to the point.

"Have you seen a Redguard woman come here in the past two to three weeks?"

"I may have seen her," she said with a sudden evasiveness. "I'm not sure I recall."

I would think she would remember a Redguard Imperial Cultist in a Nord mead hall. Something was fishy here.

I thanked her and strode towards the back, to where the chieftain stood. I approached him and politely introduced myself. He welcomed me to Thirsk and even offered me a mead. I declined: it was too early in the day to experiment with new alcoholic beverages. I do enjoy drinking but I set limits to it. I would try mead some other time.

He confirmed that she had been here but had little else to say beyond "perhaps she left," while glancing meaningfully at one particular person: Erich the Unworthy.

I thanked him and walked to the bar. The woman behind the bar wore a Nordic ringmail cuirass, wolf greaves and wolf boots. Like me, her arms were bare. Her blond hair was shoulder length and her eyes were hazel. Leaning against the wall behind her, yet close by, was an axe of a type unfamiliar to me.

"I am Svenja Snow-song. What can I do for you?"

"I'm Rashelle."

She lowered her voice and said to me, "Watch our for Erich the Unworthy. he's a foul beast."

I raised an eyebrow.

She changed the subject. "Don't you get cold walking around like that outside?"

"No, I like cold. I love snow."

She put a hand on my elbow. She ran her hand along my arm, up to my shoulder. She said, "You've just come in from outside, yet you have no goose-bumps: you're not cold at all."

I grinned. Nope.

"You're more Nord than I am!" she marveled.

We both laughed.

"Rashelle, would you like some mead? My treat."

"No, but thank you. It's too early in the day for me."

Svenja and I seemed to be getting along well, so I asked her about Marisa. Suddenly her friendliness was gone. She was unwilling to discuss the matter beyond conceding that Marisa had been here.

The people here were not telling me something.

I had been warned about Erich but the hint from the chieftain and my own intuition indicated that in order for me to obtain any additional information on Marisa, Erich was the one I would have to talk to.

I approached him and asked: "Are you Erich the Unworthy?"

"Hey there, pretty little thing, I'm more than worthy! Let me keep you warm." he said and then leered at me in a manner most disgusting.

"I'm searching for an Imperial cultist, a Redguard woman named Marisa."

"Ha! Yeah, she came here a few weeks ago. She was preaching at us to stop drinking mead. I didn't like what she had to say: it made me very angry. She just wouldn't shut up."

The tone in his voice gave me a strong suspicion as to what had happened. I began to feel a red rage. I'm sure my eyes now had the hardness of obsidian as well as the color.

"I've got the little tramp locked in my room," he continued. "I like to go up there and smack her around a bit, throw mead at her, do other things to her. I have her whenever I want."

He laughed.

"Once in a while I feed her."

I was so mad I could hardly see. There were now only two reasons why this man was still alive. First, there were too many people in the room who could come to his aid if I attacked him. Secondly, he could be lying. I had to see if she was really in his room.

"How interesting," I forced myself to say. It hurt.

He leered at me and said, "Want to come up and see? Then I can pitch you some woo! Take that play sword and that armor off and I can make you a real woman, like I do for her. You know you want it. Then you and her can get some g ..."

"Yes. Show me the woman." I interrupted.

He hesitated. He hadn't expected that. I was supposed to act horrified and then flee. I was not playing that game.

"Err."

"You do have her? You haven't been making this up, have you?"

He looked around. I didn't have to turn my head to know that everyone in the room was focused on our conversation. Nords are a a proud people. I had called Erich's bluff and now he had to do something to save face. There was nothing he could do, save to show me the woman. He was trapped.

"Follow me," he said.

He walked to a set of stairs. Since they were in a dark corner, I had not noticed them before. I followed.

We ascended.

He stopped by one of the doors and said, "Here we hare."

He seemed unsure of himself now, a bit hesitant.

I waited silently. I arced an eyebrow as if it say, "well?"

He dug a key out of a pocket and unlocked the door.

He opened the door and waved for me to enter.

"After you," I said coldly.

He entered. I followed and I beheld a naked Redguard woman tied to a bed by strips of cloth. She'd been beaten and even now I cannot bring myself to describe her condition. She looked at me with eyes dulled by the weeks of her ordeal yet still defiant.

"Let her go, now," I hissed.

He whirled around and actually tried to hit me. Presumably he had intended to use the element of surprise and knock me out. Then he would have two women to abuse.

I batted his fist aside and planted my own in his jaw.

He took a step back, looking a little dazed.

Quick as thought, Chrysamere was out. Erich choked his last and collapsed on the floor. I extracted my sword from the now-dead body.

I rushed to Marisa.

"Marisa, I'm Rashelle. I'm here to rescue you."

I couldn't untie the pieces of cloth so I used my silver dagger to cut them.

Once she was freed I handed her a potion.

"It's a Restore Health potion. Drink it."

She did.

"I've been kept prisoner for ... I don't know, I could not track the time, at least two weeks. He beat me and ... he ... raped me."

She could not continue. She began to cry. I hugged her.

"It's OK. I've killed him, I'm going to take you back to the fort."

I handed her a second potion.

"This is a Morning After potion. I think you need to drink it."

"Thank you," she gasped before taking it.

She made a face. I knew it was a horrible tasting potion, but one does not drink it for the flavor.

"He made me drink mead, nothing but mead."

There was a sound behind me. I turned to look. Svenja Snow-song stood in the doorway.

"What do *you* want?" I snapped.

"I want to help."

"That man was beating and raping her for two weeks: why didn't you help then?" I hissed. "How could you let this happen? You, a woman?"

"Let her help," said Marisa.

I nodded, grudgingly, to Svenja.

"Marisa, where is your robe?" Imperial Cult priests always wear robes.

"That's what he tied me up with."

She held up one of the pieces of cloth.

Svenja and I improvised an outfit from Erich's spare clothing.

Marisa started to cry again. "These clothes, th-th-they smell like him!" she sobbed.

It was time to go.

"Marisa, please tell me you can cast the Divine Intervention spell?"

She shook her head. Silly Rashelle: if she could cast that spell she would have done so weeks ago! I recalled a similar conversation with a Temple priest in Mournhold.

"Well, here, I will lend you this."

I handed her my Divine Intervention amulet.

She put it on and invoked it. She disappeared.

I turned to Svenja, who started to speak.

"I'm sorry, I ..."

I slapped her.

"You don't understand," she said. "He was my clan brother. I could not speak ill of him or harm him. We are like a family here in Thirsk. There are traditions, there are rules. Although at times they are ... problematic. Every one of us wanted to stop Erich but we could not."

I remembered some of my own experiences in House Redoran. Things had been going on and everyone knew, yet no one would speak of them. I recalled a particular duty given to me by the House that I had been obligated to carry out ... though I found it both distasteful and shameful. It had involved a dual and a "slander" that happened to be the truth. This memory allowed me to see Svenja's lack of action in a more forgiving light.

My anger vanished.

"Oh Svenja, I'm sorry I slapped you. Here."

I turned a cheek.

"No Rashelle," she said as she took my hand, "I don't want to slap you. A very bad thing has happened and you are justifiably angry. This is understandable."

I turned to her and nodded.

"Rashelle, they will all be grateful to you for killing Erich. He was a swine and we all wanted him dead. You won't have any further trouble here."

I nodded.

I withdrew my hand and and said, "By your leave, I will teleport out."

"Rashelle, don't think too harshly of us. Normally Thirsk is a good place. Please come back some time; you'll see."

"Perhaps."

She nodded.

I cast a Divine Intervention spell. Now I was in front of the Imperial Cult chapel in Fort Frostmoth. Marisa was standing next to me. I was surprised she had not gone inside straightaway. She handed me the amulet.

"Thank you, Rashelle."

"You're welcome. I was glad to do it. Let's take you inside. Where is your room?"

"No," she said, "I want to see Joleen."

I opened the door and we went in. We walked past a trooper and turned left, to the area with the Cult altar.

"Marisa!"

She ran into his arms. They both looked so happy.

"I'm so glad you are here with me again."

I decided that there must be something I had to do elsewhere so I left them alone. Later on Joleen told me that he was canceling missionary activities in Solstheim: I wholeheartedly agreed.

That was quite the heart warming update. Excellent work.

Heart warming? I don't really agree though it's probably because I focus on the deed rather than the outcome. Geez, family honor is really a messed up thing in my opinion if it means that things like this are simply allowed to happen.

And that unworthy fellow was unworthy of life, but definitely worthy of Chrysamere in his rotten flesh and worthy of being called a creep of the first grade.

Hm, and what about this organization of psychotic Nord women? Very suspicious.

Chapter 4. Prohibition




Curious as ever, I decided to walk up the spiraling stairs and see what was in the rooms above the Imperial Cult chapel.

I stepped into a hallway that was unoccupied. One of the doors led to a room furnished as an office. The man there introduced himself as Carnius Magius and informed me that these were the offices of the Solstheim Branch of the East Empire Company.

"I hadn't realized you did business here."

"As yet we're doing nothing, but I've got a site in mind that looks promising. As a matter of fact, we could use some people to help with various aspects of this new project. Would you like to join the East Empire company?"

"Hmm, you have need of the adventurous sort?"

"Well, this is a somewhat dangerous area. Who better than a warrior adventurer to work here?"

I am a spell-sword, not just a warrior, but I saw no need to correct him. It was refreshing to talk to someone who did not know all about me: on Solstheim, almost no one knew or cared that I was the Nerevarine.

"What about Reinhardt Red-spear? He knows the area thoroughly and is literate as well."

"Feh, natives! No. This is an Imperial company."

I didn't like that attitude. Attitudes like this were the reason the Dunmer ... and others ... disliked the Empire so much.

If the East Empire Company were here, there had to be something of value to the Empire. Something like diamonds or glass or ebony. They would swoop in and extract whatever they could. They might do damage to the land in the process of said extraction. My first reaction was that I wanted no part of it.

I then had the thought that if I were involved with what was going at this early stage, I could find ways to protect Solstheim from the worst of it. I could not stop the East Empire Company, but I could certainly reduce the damage they did here.

"Tell me more."

"Well it would not be full time work. You'd be an employee but would only have random odd jobs from time to time, whatever needs doing. You would still have time to do ... err ... whatever it is you do."

I smiled and said, "Sounds good."

"Excellent. Now as it so happens, I already have a man at the site."

I looked questioningly at him.

"The Raven Rock site; here let me show you on this map."

From his desk he pulled out a parchment with a map of Solstheim. On it was drawn the outline of the island. There was not much on it aside from the locations of Lake Fjalding, the fort and a small number of other places. Comparing it to my mental map I could see that I still had a lot of exploring to do.

He pointed to a spot labeled "Raven rock". I had actually wandered close to that location at least once in my travels.

"My man Falco is there now, assessing the site."

I nodded.

"Some of the first workers have arrived here at the docks. They are waiting there now. I'd like you to escort them to the site. Protect them from the weird creatures around here."

"OK. I'm on it."

"Great! Let me write you a letter of introduction to take to Falco."

He jotted something on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

"Thank you, Rashelle ... and welcome to the East Empire Company."

I bumped into Procis Catraso on my way out of the building. His duties seemed to take him by the Cult Chapel often.

"Hey, Rashelle, do you want to eat here at the fort tonight? The food will be fresh: Trooper Secundus went fishing before and caught some crimson flounder."

"No, I have things to do today, but thank you anyway."

Once outside, I looked up: from the position of the sun it was around noon. I noticed that, on a clear day, the sky is a more intense blue in Solstheim than anywhere else.

As Carnius had said, the three workers were standing near the dock. I could see a ship moored at the dock. Perhaps it was the one they had arrived on.

I did not fancy shepherding these three through the forests of Solstheim. As I walked towards the workers, an idea occurred to me. I walked past them, without introducing myself, and then strode up the gangplank onto the ship. Her captain was on board. He was a Bosmer, which I thought unusual: they are not noted for nautical abilities. I asked him about chartering his boat for a trip to the future location of the Raven Rock colony.

"I will take you and the men there for free. I am going that way anyway because I need to learn the route."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Once the new Raven Rock colony is established, it will be part of my regular run."

How fortunate for me. After first ascertaining that he was ready to leave immediately, I walked back to the men.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am Rashelle and I have been asked by Carnius to escort you to Raven Rock. Are you ready?"

"Yes, Rashelle. Lead on."

The trip to Raven Rock was uneventful. We arrived at a section of beautiful landscape, with ground partially snow-covered, dotted with those pretty Solstheim trees and some dark rock outcrops.

Sweet Azura, those were outcrops of Ebony! I'd never seen ebony on the surface before. I now knew why the Empire intended to build a colony here ... to mine the ebony.

Since the ship was as close to the land as it could get without running aground, the men disembarked by the simple method of diving into the water and swimming to the shore. I used a Water Walking spell: swimming in heavy armor is unpleasant and I did not want to get Carnias's letter wet. Upon reaching the shore, I waved to the captain. The boat was already sailing away.

I saw an Imperial man, sensibly dressed in armor. He had to be Falco.

"Are you Falco?"

"Yes I am; you are?"

"I am Rashelle, these men have been sent here to work under your direction."

I presented to him the letter from Carnius. He read it quickly.

"Hmm, hmm, yes, very good. Thank you, Rashelle."

I turned to leave.

"Rashelle?"

I turned to him.

"I need you to do a little favor for me."

I nodded.

He handed me a piece of raw ebony.

"This is a piece of raw ebony ore. Carnius wants samples of the ore from around here. Can you find four more pieces like this one and then take all five of them back to him?"

I nodded.

"Excellent. Thank you."

It was only a few paces to the nearest outcrop. I didn't have the proper mining tools but I was able to break off two pieces simply by tugging on them.

I strolled to another outcrop and broke off two more pieces.

In the meantime, Falco was busy talking to the men. They were all crouched down, clustered around a parchment that Falco had spread on the ground. He was pointing to it and then raising his arm and pointing in one direction or another.

I cast Divine Intervention and was returned to the fort. Carnias was pleased with the ebony.

"Yes, this is very nice ... and right from the surface you say?"

I nodded.

"Fascinating ... with the right deal, we all profit. Excellent work, Rashelle."

He gave me a piece of parchment. I looked and saw that it was an East Empire Company stock certificate.

"We like employees to own stock. It makes them feel more like part of the team. If the colony goes well, you'll be able to cash that in for a sizable amount."

Money was not a concern to me, but I nodded politely. Any time I needed money I could simply sell some daedric, ebony or glass weapons. Obtaining these weapons was a simple matter of finding and fighting the right daedra.

"I have nothing that needs to be done at the moment. Could you stop by in day or so?"

I nodded and took my leave.

I explored some of the fort for a time. I found the Armory. I went inside. From the smith there I obtained some extra repair tools. Curiosity then made me decide to finally go and meet this Captain Falx Carius.

His office was above the General Quarters, in the large building on the west side of the fort.

I introduced myself to him.

"A pleasure to meet you, Rashelle. Would you like to join the Legion? You clearly have the qualifications we need."

"Thank you, sera ... but no."

"Oh well, I understand, I guess. Say, could you investigate something for me?"

"Perhaps. What is it?" I did not want to commit to a task that might be against my principles.

"Rashelle, since I am the captain of the fort the men won't discuss certain things with me. This is normal, as I am their commanding officer, but it can be vexing at times: I cannot obtain information that I might need. As a civilian, they will most likely discuss things with you that they feel they cannot with me.

"I'm concerned about the morale here at the fort. The men are sullen and resentful. Tempers are short. A fight broke out the other day. Things look like they could get ugly. I would like you to find out why the morale is so bad."

"That's because you banned alcohol at the fort," I blurted out.

Oh Rashelle, you simply must think before you speak!

He looked surprised. "Oh."

He paused and then said, "really?"

I nodded.

He paused before continuing. "I didn't make this a dry fort. The shipments of alcohol just stopped about a month ago. Myself, I don't drink that often so I don't care either way.

"It is upsetting, however, that the men blame me. I wonder how that rumor got started? Look Rashelle, the only one I know of who is actually against drinking is the Imperial Cult priest."

"Joleen?" I said in surprise. When I had investigated the Moon sugar poisonings, Joleen had told me that he had been drinking a cup of wine.

"No, Antonius Nuncius is the head of the Cult here in Frostmoth. He is against drinking. Rather odd, that, as the Cult normally has no stance on the matter."

I nodded.

"Could you perhaps look into the matter of the missing alcohol shipments? I did not actually cancel any supply orders, so maybe the booze has just gone missing."

I nodded.

I returned to the Imperial Cult Shrine.

"Greetings Rashelle," said Joleen. "Marisa told me what happened to her, and what you did. I am supposed to be against violence but I am glad you killed that filthy fetcher. I can't thank you enough."

"It was my pleasure, but I have a question for you."

"Ask anything."

"I've heard about an Antonius Nuncius who is supposed to be ... your boss, but I have never seen him here in the chapel."

"Oh, he has various administrative tasks in addition to his Cult duties. He manages inventory for the fort, tracks incoming supplies, that sort of thing. He can often be found in the Armory. He has an office there, on the upper floor."

Joleen described him.

"Thank you Joleen."

I returned to the Armory. I rushed up the spiral stairs and almost bumped into an Imperial man in a brown robe.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"That's quite all right, You look like you have something on your mind. How can the Nine Divines assist?"

"Well ... sera, are you Antonius Nuncius?"

"Yes I am. How can I help?"

"I was wondering about the 'dry' fort."

"Ah, yes; a terrible thing. The men are very grumpy. It's a shame that the Captain decreed this."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Captain Carius," he said to me, "he's head of the fort."

He didn't know that I had already met Carius.

I said, "The captain says he didn't actually order the fort to be dry. He said the beverages in question just stopped appearing in the supply shipments about a month ago."

He looked annoyed.

"Well, certainly the shipments stopped. After all, since he declared the fort to be dry, he'd order the shipments to stop, right? Now if you'll excuse me, I have duties elsewhere."

I nodded absently and he resumed his descent of the stairs, in a bit of a huff. I guess I wasn't his friend now: I'd cope.

Something was up, and my gut feeling told me that Antonius was hiding something.

I continued to climb the stairs to the second floor. I found myself in a short hallway with two doors placed in opposite walls. I nodded to the guard patrolling and entered the open doorway in the left wall.

I chatted with a second guard as I explored a room full of supplies. It is amazing how much I can get away with in front of someone who is looking right at me, simply by talking to them as I am doing it. I acted as if I had every right to be there and it was not even necessary to make up a cover story. I lifted the lids on chests, peeked into crates, and peered into storage urns. I found nothing suspicious or out of place.

In the hallway, I chatted with the first guard. The topic turned to the wildlife of Solstheim. My back was to the door to the second room. Hands behind my back, I blindly picked the lock while I described to him the hostile Nord women with the unusual daggers.

"That sounds like the Fryse Hags."

From my pack I extracted the a small bundle wrapped in cloth while simultaneously I stowed my lock pick. He saw the former action and not the latter. I unwrapped the bundle to reveal the frost-enchanted dagger that I had taken the other day.

"They carried knives like this one."

He reached for it.

"Be careful of the blade. It is razor sharp."

He nodded as he took it. He held it and slowly rotated it. It caught the light.

"Yes, I've seen this type of dagger before. Those were definitely Fryse Hags that you encountered."

Looking past his shoulder, I could see the second guard leave the other room and head for the stairs.

"What do you know of them?" I asked.

"Not much. They apparently worship the Nord goddess Kyne. She is known as 'the mother of men' but I don't know anything else about her. These Fryse Hags seem to attack anyone not of their order."

He handed the dagger back to me.

He chuckled and said "Seems that since they kill everyone who is not one of them, they'd have trouble recruiting, eh?"

I nodded. That was a good point.

I thanked him for the information and he then walked away.

I slowly and carefully wrapped the dagger and stowed it in my pack. When I had completed this activity, the guard had disappeared down the spiral stairwell. I was now alone in the hallway.

I opened the door, now unlocked, and entered the second room. After closing the door behind me, I examined the room. It was lit by two candles. Most of the floor was covered by a rug. Imperial Cult tapestries hung from the walls. Against one wall was a large closet. A desk was placed in a corner, at an angle. It faced the door.

The closet was locked. It was an unusual lock in that I could not pick it. I could feel spells on it. Most unusual: this amount of security was more appropriate for the Redoran treasury than an office in a frontier fort.

The paperwork scattered on the desk confirmed that I was in the office of Antonius Nuncius. I picked the locks of the drawers in the desk. There were bottles of booze in almost every drawer. None of the bottles had been opened.

I opened a small bottle of mazte and took a sniff. It smelled like mazte. I raised the bottle and sipped. It was mazte; rather good mazte, actually. I took a bottle of flin and a Cyrodiilic brandy as well. This would be evidence enough for Carius. It was too bad I could not get the closet open: I was fairly sure that it contained a months' worth of booze for the fort.

I stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind me. I turned and saw a Antonius Nuncius stepping off the stairwell, glaring at me.

"What is the meaning of this!"

I took a swig of the mazte and smiled at him.

"Antonius, you have been a naughty boy." With the hand holding the bottle, I pointed to him. "You've been holding out."

His face reddened, his hands formed fists, though they remained at his side. He took a few steps towards me.

My eyes warned him not to try anything.

"I, I, I did it for their own good. Alcohol is Evil! It is Wrong! No one should drink."

I took another sip.

"Is that a fact?

"L-l-look, ah ..."

"Rashelle."

"Look, Rashelle: I'll give you the key to the closet. You can tell Carius it was all a misunderstanding. Say a shipment just now came in with the booze today. All the booze can go out to the men. This won't ever happen again. Just please don't tell him what I've been doing."

He was visibly nervous. I corked the bottle.

"Antonius," I hissed, "I don't like to be told what to do. I don't like to be told what to drink or not drink. I don't submit to that; no one else should, either. You decided on your own to force the men to stop drinking. It's not Legion policy, nor is it Cult policy. That is wrong. Trying to pin the blame on the captain is even worse. It's people like you that cause all sorts of problems.

"I've met people like you before. They enjoy telling others what to do. I know how they work."

I poked him in the chest with the hand not holding the bottle. He took a step back. I took a step forward.

"First they tell you what you can't drink. They say it's for your own good."

I poked his chest. He stumbled another step back. I advanced.

"Then they tell you what you can't eat."

I poked his chest again. He moved another step away. I stepped forward.

"Than they tell you who you cannot sleep with."

I poked his chest. His back was now against the wall.

"I don't like that, Antonius. I don't like that at all. I have a problem with that: a big problem."

"R-Rashelle, it's not just that ... I err ... "

I glared silently at him. He was sweating now. He swallowed.

"Well go ahead and tell Carius, then," he blustered. "At least I'll get shipped out from this god-forsaken place! I'll get a safer nicer warmer assignment at another chapel!"

I smiled. I'm sure it was a cruel smile.

"No Antonius," I said softly. "If I did that, you would try this same routine on some other group of people at another chapel. This ends now.

"Here is what is going to happen. I will relate to the Captain exactly what has occurred. He will now be wise to your antics, so you won't be able to pull this kind of stunt again.

"I am then going to recommend that he send a letter back to Cyrodiil. In it, he will praise your devotion to your duties and your excellent work. He will highlight your overwhelming desire to remain at this fort. Your assignment here will go on ... "

Poke.

"and ..."

Poke.

"on."

He was silent. There was a look of defeat and horror on his face. He spoke: "Stuck here, forever ... I'll die."

"Give me your office key."

He hesitated.

"Now."

He gave me the key. I locked the door: I did not want him disposing of the evidence.

Carius was surprised at the identify of the culprit, yet pleased that I had figured out what had been going on in such a short time. He thought my suggestion as to handling the matter was ingenious.

"Remind me never to cross you," he said to me.

I smiled sweetly.

Heh, I loved it. Totally, I loved it. Rashelle can sound so evil when she wants to. Just keep on poking.

hehehe....just great! I really like Rashelle´s attitude!



hilarious!

That girl really is special! Keep it up Blockie, it´s sheer awesome!

Another fine update, Blockhead. I don't like being told what not to drink either!

Cept maybe if it was motor oil or antifreeze or something like that!

Hm, and part of the mystery of the psycho nord women with weird daggers is revealed!

Thank you all for the comments!


This chapter has an off-hand mention of something that may be a spoiler for Tribunal. Sorry. I expect no one cares any more but I mention it here anyway.

--
Chapter 5. Explorations



The sun was nearing the horizon: it was time to see about dinner and a place to sleep. It would be easy to stay here at the fort, but I just did not want to. I needed to be away from people again: I needed to be out in the Solstheim wilderness.

It began to snow as I traveled. It rapidly became a blizzard, with visibility not more than thirty feet. I was walking east now, into an area I had not explored yet. I crossed water twice before I was attacked, this time by another one of those Fryse Hags.

This was beginning to annoy me; not so much their murderous intentions, but the question as to their motivation. I supposed the Hags could simply be like bandits, killing for the thrill as well as the loot, or like rogue Ashlanders, who still try to kill outlanders to this day, but I did not know. This is what bothered me: the not knowing. I don't like a mystery.

She summoned a greater bone-walker and hurled a frost spell at me.

I hurriedly chopped through the bone-walker, before its spells could reduce my strength to zero. My Atronach birth sign absorbed the frost spell and partially replenished my magicka.

"This is getting old," I shouted as I grabbed her wrist and twisted.

She screamed in pain and dropped the dagger. I kicked: it sailed off into the swirling snowflakes and disappeared.

She tried to attack me bare handed.

"So", I said a few seconds later as I sat on her still-struggling form, "what's it all about? Why are you all attacking me? Are you really a Fryse Hag?"

She cursed and continued to struggle. She was bigger than me, but I had a weight advantage from my armor and weapons, and I had a strength advantage as well. I watched the snow for a time. It seemed to be tapering off. This would be a quick blizzard that would leave little accumulation on the ground.

Eventually she subsided, either through a sensible realization of her situation or just from being tired out. I looked down at her and asked: "So, who are you?"

She was silent. I waited.

After a time she finally broke her silence and said: "Aren't you cold?"

"Nope. Maybe after dark I'll be, but not now. So, now: are you a Fryse Hag?"

"Yes."

"Now we are getting somewhere. Why did you attack me?"

"You are not of our order, not a Fryse Hag. You are not even a Nord."

"I see. So anyone not a Hag must die. Recruiting must be difficult, eh?"

She glowered.

"Go on, kill me." she demanded. "All life ends in death: it does not matter."

I'd heard this kind of fatalism from Nords before. Nords have this strange death wish thing going on in their religion and folklore. To many Nords, the greatest desire is to die in battle.

Almost every religion has a prophecy that one day Good and Evil, or Law and Chaos, will have a final battle ... but the Nords believe that Evil will triumph and that the world will be destroyed. This gives them a strange outlook at times.

"Wouldn't you like to live?" I asked.

She remained silent.

"Do you have children? Are they waiting for you? Do they know that their mother runs around killing people randomly for fun?"

She remained silent.

"I should kill you. It's clear that even if I let you go, you'll only attack me again the next time we meet."

Her only reply was a sullen silence. While she had tried to slay me, I just could not bring myself to kill her in her current defenseless state.

"What kind of life are you living? Don't you get tired of it?"

Again, silence.

"I wish we could work something out. I wish you would talk. Do you have a leader?"

Predictably, silence.

Enough. I cast Divine Intervention and was returned to the fort.

Severia Gratius jumped in surprise as I appeared within a foot of her.

"Oh hello Rashelle, you gave me a start."

"Sorry, I just cast an Intervention," I said as I stood up.

"Yes, Joleen only set up that Divine Mark a week ago. I am still getting used to it."

"Just a week ago? is this a new fort?"

"Relatively. We've been here just over a year but some things, such as the Divine Intervention mark, are still being added, piecemeal, now."

She smiled and then continued, "You've arrived just in time for dinner. Come to the mess hall with me: trooper Secundus caught some fresh crimson flounder and we have booze again."

I had previously wanted to be by myself, but that conversation with the Hag had left me cold ... an unpleasant sort of cold that made me want some human company. I nodded, but I had a concern.

"As a civilian, is there a problem with me eating your food?"

"Pshaw. It's not like we're swamped with beggars. It comes out of your taxes so you really paid for it. Besides, I'm an officer: there won't be a problem."

Upon entering the mess hall, I saw Procis Catraso. He waved to me from across the room. I waved back. After obtaining some food and beverages, Severia and I joined him. Normally officers and enlisted men do not mingle, but either because this was a frontier fort, or because I was a civilian, or perhaps because of the sudden jump in fort morale, Severia did not object to eating with Procis.

"Changed your mind, eh?" he said.

I related the story of my strange encounter with the Fryse Hag as we ate. The flounder was not bad.

"Those Hags are a strange lot: I've run into a few."

"I wish I knew what they were all about. It bothers me, not knowing. There has got to be more to them than just running around and randomly killing anyone they meet. It doesn't make sense."

"What about the berserkers? That's what they do."

"Well, they have a reason, they are driven mad by the cold and mead."

"That's not much of a reason."

I frowned and said, "I guess not."

The conversation changed to more pleasant topics. The happy mood on the part of the soldiers, now that they had their alcohol back, cheered me considerably. Dinner had an atmosphere more of a party than a simple meal. It was all rather un-Imperial, in a good way. I had a much better time than I had expected to.

At some point in the festivities, Procis apologetically said that he had watch duty and took his leave.

"Maybe we should go as well."

Quite tipsy, Severia and I walked outside into the clean cool night air. The sound of drunken singing continued behind us.

"Rashelle, you need a place to sleep?"

I belched and said, "Err, hadn't thought about that yet. I'll go crash in a storeroom or something." I laughed and said, "can't sleep in the barracks with the men, now, eh?"

"I have my own quarters. You can sleep there. It's a small room, but comfortable."

"Thank you."

"It's my pleasure; come with me."



I woke later than my usual time. Severia was gone: she had managed to depart without waking me.

I rubbed my eyes and then buckled on my cuirass. My greaves were in a corner, by my pack. I put them on. I'm not sure how one of my boots ended up on top of her closet. I fetched it down, found the other one, and put them on. Chrysamere was on the floor, unsheathed and placed within reach. After donning the now-sheathed claymore, I put on my pack.

On the table was a plate with scrambled kwama eggs and some kind of meat that I later found out was frost boar. A note on the table indicated that duties had called Severia elsewhere and that she had ordered the breakfast brought up here for me. The food, though cooled a bit, was rather tasty. This was definitely not your usual Imperial Legion hospitality.

I wrote her a note, thanking her, and then I left.

I was still bothered by yesterday's brief conversation with that Fryse Hag. I wanted to obtain more information and I had no pressing matters to attend to. I wandered the fort until I found an area that appeared to be traveled infrequently. I then cast a Mark spell. Now, whenever I cast a Recall spell, I would be teleported to this spot from wherever I happened to be.

From my pack I then extracted the Mazed Band, an artifact that I had acquired in Mournhold. Its enchantment allowed me to teleport to Vivec, Mournhold, or Sotha Sil. Actually, this last destination no longer worked. My theory was that either Sotha Sil had flooded all the way or the dome in the final room had collapsed: the enchantment "knew" that I could not go there anymore. I invoked the band and was teleported to Vivec, just outside of the High Fane.

After the events that led to my becoming the Nerevarine, I had been given unrestricted access to all of the books in the Temple library in Vivec. The blasphemous books, those dealing with any religion other than that of the Tribunal, were what I wanted to look through.

The information on the Nordic beliefs was slim, but I did learn that the goddess Kyne had been the wife of Shor. Shor was interesting in that he had rebelled against the other gods and had created the mortal plane. This sounded exactly like the tale of the aedroth Lorkhan. Like Lorkhan, Shor had been killed by the other gods as punishment for this act.

As I had already noticed, Fryse Hags are noted for their skill with frost-based magic. One book mentioned that they view "most people" as a threat to their beliefs. This would indicate that there were some people who they would not attack on site. This last did not include Breton spell-swords, at least in my own experience.

The phrase "kiss at the end" was associated with Kyne. The books were unclear on what it meant but I think it had something to do with the Nord battle death wish: to fight gloriously and to receive a kiss from some sort of female demigoddess or spirit as they died.

Kyne was associated with storms. Her "daughters" had somehow given Nords the Storm Voice ability, which was a powerful frost damage spell that all Nords can cast once a day. It was unclear who these daughters were. Were they human or something else? Were they the Fryse Hags?

I found a book that listed the equivalents across religions: often a particular deity in one faith's pantheon is nearly identical to another, save for being renamed. It turned out that in the Imperial Cult's pantheon, Kynareth is the equivalent of Kyne.

Kynareth, one of the Nine Divines worshiped by the Imperial Cult, is a goddess of the air and is the strongest of the Sky spirits. In some legends, she was the first to agree to Lorkhan's plan to create the mortal plane. She is also associated with rain. One goddess for storms, the other for rain and air: a close enough match.

This was interesting but seemed to be a digression from the topic of concern: the Fryse Hags.

I closed the last book. I smiled to the ordinator who had been reading over my shoulder. He was not allowed to read these books but under the pretense of guarding me he could sneak a peek.

"Not much here, sera," I said to him, "I'll have to search elsewhere."

"Perhaps, err, an Imperial chapel?" he said, obviously uncomfortable at discussing "blasphemous" things.

"Not a bad idea, sera. Thank you."

I imagine that, under his helm, he smiled.

"By your leave, I will teleport out."

He nodded.

I cast Divine Intervention and was teleported to Ebonheart, just outside of the Imperial Cult chapel.

There was not an actual library there but I was on good terms with the priests, even though I was not a member of the Cult. They were able to discuss Kynareth but confessed to knowing only as much about Kyne as I now did. Generally, Imperial Cultists are an open-minded lot and will tend to know a surprising amount about other religions ... but not this time. It was starting to look as if the dearth of information on Fryse Hags was not part of any suppression on the part of either the Cult or the Temple, but simply that no one knew much about them. A secretive group, these Hags.

I entered Jobasha's Rare books. Jobasha had a strange filing system: the books were in no perceptible order, yet he somehow knew the location of each and every one of them. Because of this, I had often stumbled onto an interesting book that I might not have otherwise. I had spent many pleasurable hours here.

He had read a great deal of his merchandise and was a wealth of surprising information.

"Good morning, Rashelle," said Jobasha.

"Good morning; any new stuff in since I've been here last?"

"Ahh, yes; Jobasha has. Come this way."

He led me around, back and forth a few times, selecting a book here and there.

As we passed by the ordinator, Jobasha said "Relax, Gadave; Rashelle is OK."

"Whew. Hello Rashelle," said the ordinator as he took off his helm.

He sat down and took up the book he had apparently been reading before I entered the shop. From behind a shelf he retrieved an opened bottle and took a sip.

Jobasha eventually give me a stack of five books that he thought would interest me, including the latest Agent adventure.

"He's read half of Jobasha's books, by the way," he said as he indicated the ordinator. "Jobasha likes him."

"Jobasha, what do you know about Nord religions?"

He launched into a short lecture that was packed with information, conveying all of the general info ... which I already knew.

"What about the Fryse Hags?"

His Khajiit brow furrowed. "Jobasha has not heard of them."

I was dumbfounded: it was rare for him to not know at least a little bit about something. I filled him in with what little I had learned. Jobasha wondered how they would recruit new Hags.

I thanked him, put aside the thought of Fryse Hags, and sat down to read. Solstheim has its wonderful cold and snow, but it has no book stores.

An hour or two later I bought two of the books he had recommended and exited the shop.

I cast Recall and was teleported back to Fort Frostmoth. Leaving the fort, I struck out again in an eastern direction. I crossed water twice, noticing that the area was green despite yesterday's snowfall. I passed what I thought was the spot where I had encountered that Fryse Hag. As I traveled, I encountered two spriggans, one berserker and a frost boar, but no Hags.

When I reached the east coast, I found a Dwemer ruin. It was a surprise. For some reason I had expected there not to be any in Solstheim. I suppose it made sense: there were Dwemer ruins all over the Empire, even as far south as Mournhold.

The door was in the eastern side of the ruin, facing the water.

I entered and was struck by the familiarity of the interior. It could have been any Dwemer ruin back in Vvardenfell. I guess I had expected the Solstheim ruins to have a different architectural style, as the Mournhold ruin had. The familiar sounds of distant Dwemer machinery carried though the air and brought a smile to my face.

Ahead, the corridor dipped down into a stairwell. I followed this until it leveled off and turned left. Stairs again: the corridor went deeper and I followed.

By now I had to be below the outside water level, yet it was dry in here. Once again I was amazed at the quality and durability of Dwemer construction.

I heard the click-clack of a centurion spider as the corridor turned left. Creeping stealthily, I rounded the corner and took out the spider with one stroke.

The corridor branched: straight ahead and to the right. I poked my head around the right branching. I saw a door on the left and the corridor bending away on the right. Since there were no obvious dangers there, I returned to the straight passage and continued to move along that.

A side corridor extended on the left, but it was a dead end. Ahead I could see that the corridor bent to the right. Around that bend glided a Dwarven spectre, the ghost of a Dwemer.

That time under Mournhold was the only time that a Dwemer ghost had not attacked, and also the only time that one had actually talked to me. The one now ahead of me started to hurl offensive spells without any hesitation.

I silently charged forward and sliced him. He fizzled away, leaving a small pile of ectoplasmic residue.

The corridor turned to the right, then to the left, then again to the right. While the sturdiness and endurance of Dwemer construction is readily apparent to all, the thinking behind some of their layouts is not. Anyone wandering through a Dwemer ruin for even a short time is struck by the realization that the Dwemer did not think at all like we do: their minds must have been unlike that of any other race.

Still, I was very curious about them. I would like to have seen what they had been like. What had these dark dim ruins looked like in their heyday, when they had life in them other than the movement of the remaining metal machinery?

A steam centurion clomped towards me, raising an arm tipped with a spiked pummeling ball. I dodged said ball and got a whack in with Chrysamere. The centurion shuddered under the impact. I got another swing in before the ball hit me. It impacted on my cuirass: there was no damage but it did make me take a step back.

I evaded another attack and thrust my sword into the chest panel. There was a burst of sparks from the panel and the centurion was motionless.

I quickly extracted my sword and jumped back a few paces as the now-inert centurion fell forward.

The sound had drawn more Dwemer robots. A sphere centurion was rolling at me from the corridor ahead. From a branching to my right clomped a steam centurion.

It did not take too long to dispatch them. I continued on.

To my left, a branching led down and to a set of heavy Dwemer doors. That probably led to a deeper area. I decided to skip that branching, for now.

It did not take me that long to explore the remainder of this area. The corridor ahead bent around and led to an area of two joined rooms. I fought the remaining Dwemer constructs there and, after casting a healing spell on myself, I searched for treasure.

The room contained an enigmatic whirling Dwemer machine, three desks, and some metal Dwemer containers that had rubies, diamonds, and scrap metal in them. While Dwemer scrap metal is at times useful, I took only the gem stones. The emeralds could be used to make Restore Health potions and the other stones I would trade.

Of interest was the book I found in a desk: It didn't belong. The binding and the parchment were not of Dwemer style or manufacture. This was a hand-written book, not made on a press. The writing inside was in ancient Nordic, not Dwemeri. The only thing remotely Dwemeric about it was its age: it appeared as if it might date back to Dwemeri times.

I tried to read it but of course I could not. I can read Tamrielic well, and I can read the Nordic alphabet enough to puzzle out the name of a barrow, but I don't know the words.

I began to place it in my pack, then I hesitated. The book was in good condition, but was obviously delicate. If I fell on my pack the wrong way, or had to swim, the book would be ruined. I could not bear to do that, so I put the book back in the desk. It had been here for centuries: it would not go away in the near future. I could perhaps come by later and then take it to a Nord savant.

It was now late in the afternoon. I could sit by a Dwemer light and read one of the books that I had purchased from Jobasha. Then I could have dinner and sleep in the ruin.

I thought about the rations I had in my pack. While they would sustain me, they were not the most exciting of culinary treats. I wanted something fresh.

I left the ruin and began to retrace my steps.

It was only a moment to locate the corpse of the frost boar that I had slain not too long ago. The ravens were already there. There were no ravens in Vvardenfell: presumably the cliff racers ate any that dared to trespass. Ravens are everywhere else in Tamriel so they were not foreign to me. It just had been so long since I had seen one. Once again I marveled at their coloration: their feathers were as black as my hair and eyes.

They flew away as I approached. I cut a suitable chunk from the boar and departed.

Back in the ruin, I spelled the doors to the surface and to the deeper area so that I would have not have any unexpected visitors without a warning. I made myself comfortable and read one of the books from Jobasha's. There was an amusing scene where a character was so afraid of the silt strider that, on his first trip, he rode the whole way with his eyes closed. I smiled at that.

After I finished the book, I built a fire; small enough to minimize smoke, as there was no chimney or smoke hole, yet large enough to cook the meat thoroughly. I discovered that frost boar meat is excellent. The flavor was familiar: it had been the meat in my breakfast that morning.

I read a little from the second book then decided it was time to sleep. I spread out my bear fur in a corner of the room, drew Chrysamere and then curled up on the fur. The soothing sounds of distant Dwemer machinery lulled me to sleep.

Another excellent and gargantuan update. I could really sense Rashelle's frustration over the whole Hag philosophy and the mysteriousness of their actions. Can't wait to read more of this.

Wow, cool! Lots of stuff, adventure and action! And also mystery!

Heh, I've actually never played Tribunal and Bloodmoon. But I don't mind, I was never able to finish Morrowind anyway.

I wonder if perhaps Rashelle's talk got to that Fryse Hag and she decided to go home.

Chapter 6. Smugglers



In the morning, I recalled to the fort. Carnias had no East Empire Company work for me so I then paid a visit to Captain Carius.

"Good morning Rashelle. Thanks once again for settling that supply problem. The morale of the troops has greatly improved."

I nodded.

"There is another matter that you could perhaps help me with."

I raised an eyebrow.

"As I said the other day; since you are civilian, the men will tell you things that they will not tell me. This has been useful to you already and I think it will be useful for this matter as well."

I waited silently for the actual details.

"Weapons are being smuggled from the fort. Presumably they are then being shipped off to Vvardenfell and sold there. I would like you to investigate this matter and then take whatever action is needed."

"You mean kill them," I said.

"Well, yes. This is a frontier fort so I can dispense with courts martial for certain crimes. You have my authorization to kill them."

"And if I choose not to kill them?"

"Rashelle; with a continued drain on our weapon supply, the fort could soon become helpless. The smuggling must stop ... and stay stopped."

"No. I've killed many smugglers but only because they were trying to kill me. I don't think it's such a crime that they need to be slain."

An angry look clouded his face. He opened his mouth, as if to order me ... then he froze. He must have remembered that I was a civilian and could simply tell him to get stuffed.

He closed his eyes. His hands clutched the side of his desk. He took in a breath, held it, released it. He opened his eyes.

I waited.

"Rashelle, I am sorry ... handle this however you see fit. All I want is for the smuggling of the weapons to stop. Could you please look into this for me?"

I nodded.

"Thank you."

He fumbled around his desk, picked up a quill and dipped it in an inkwell. He began to write on a sheet of paper.

"I'd like one of the troopers to assist you. Pick either Saenus Lusius or Gaea Artoria. They are both in the General Quarters below. Give this note to whoever you choose."

He finished the note and showed it to me. It read: "Assist Rashelle in the matter that she is working on. Accept her orders as my own. Try to avoid killing anyone."

It was signed "Captain Falx Carius".

I smiled and nodded.

He folded the paper, melted some wax over it and stamped the wax.

He passed me the sealed orders and thanked me again. I nodded and departed.

I was left with a bit of a problem. I had to choose one of two soldiers, and I could only give one of them the orders. I therefore had to assess both of them and make my decision ... before I could actually ask one to accompany me. Neither name was familiar to me.

I found Saenus Lusius first. Without showing him the orders, I introduced myself and spoke briefly to him of the smugglers. He seemed a level-headed sort. Presumably he had gone through the standard Legion training so he would handle himself in combat should it prove necessary.

I then spoke to Gaea Artoria. She was a woman so I made a tentative decision to take her along with me. As we conversed, however, I noticed that she seemed to be the reckless sort who tended to charge in with sword swinging ... much like myself. It would be a pleasure to fight at her side in a straight-ahead simple battle, but this was not a battle.

After thanking her for her time, I changed my mind: I would take Saenus. He was less impetuous and I wanted someone unlike myself to work with for this endeavor.

He had not gone far. Not wasting words, I simply handed him the sealed orders. He broke the seal and read the short note.

"Very well, then: what's the mission? Is it the smuggling that you spoke of before?"

"Yes."

"Hmm, smugglers. Bad enough the enemies outside but now we have problems within."

"You think it is an inside job?"

"Who else would be able to remove weapons from the fort?"

He had a point.

After some thought he continued, "Rashelle, if we are to trace the weapons, we should speak to someone who handles weapons. That would be the smith, Zeno Faustus, in the Armory."

"Sounds good. Let's go."

As we walked, I said, "As a cover story, we'll pretend that you are showing me around. Zeno will think you're trying to 'make' me, OK?"

Saenus actually blushed. Awww.

We reached the Armory and entered. The smith, Zeno, was where I had seen him the last time I had been here.

"... and here we have the Armory," said Saenus to me in his best tour-guide voice. With difficulty I refrained from giggling.

"Hello again, Rashelle", said Zeno. "Need more hammers?"

"Not at the moment, thank you."

"It's a shame there are not more weapons on display," said Saenus. "Zeno had some nice ones not so long ago, including that nifty silver axe I had mentioned to you before. I'd really been hoping to show it to you."

"Oooo," I said, following Saenus's lead. "I would love to have seen that."

I blinked and said to Saenus, "Do you suppose that the smugglers could have taken that silver axe?"

"Smugglers?" said Zeno apprehensively.

"Weapons are being smuggled from the fort," said Saenus. "Do you know anything about that?"

Zeno looked at Saenus, then at me, then back to Saenus.

"L-l-look, I'm not involved in the smuggling, but I hear things, you know?"

A pair of obsidian eyes and a pair of brown eyes transfixed Zeno.

Zeno sputtered.

I slowly drew my sword and said "I get to kill him now, right Saenus?"

I had not planned this part but Saenus was quick on the uptake and went along with it.

"No! Not yet. Remember our orders!"

"But I want to kill him!" I pouted. "You promised that if he was difficult I could kill him!"

"Rashelle: Zeno is not going to be difficult, he is going to tell us all he knows,"

he turned and continued, "aren't you, Zeno?"

Zeno was shaking now.

"Well, can't I just hurt him a little? Please? I won't break any bones."

I licked my lips. I was hamming this up a bit but Zeno was completely fooled.

"L-l-l-look," stuttered the now-sweating smith, "all I know is that some of the weapons have gone missing. I've seen men heading towards North East, probably to the Gandrung Caverns. They are not far from the fort. I'm not involved with the smugglers! I swear I'm not involved! I've just told you all I know"

"Damn, I guess I can't kill you after all."

He let a breath out.

"There there, Rashelle," said Saenus, "If we find that his information is wrong, you can still kill him later."

I grinned the nastiest grin I could manage and said "Excellent!"

Zeno looked like he was going to faint. I sheathed my sword. We departed from the Armory.

As we left the fort and headed towards the North East, I said "Thank you, Saenus, for going along with my sudden inspiration."

"That was great fun, Rashelle. You should have been in the theater."

In my previous travels I actually had passed close to the Gandrung Caverns, but had not realized it. The water near the fort was actually not a river but a short inlet terminated by a Nord barrow that was the entrance to the caverns.

We paused at the door, knee-deep in the water. I turned to Saenus.

"Remember: I don't want to kill unless it is necessary. I would like to sort this out by nonviolent means if possible."

"I understand and agree, but i need clarification: what if we are forced to fight?"

"Saenus, if you see anyone coming at you with weapons raised, you cut them down."

"Understood!"

We both smiled.

We entered. The inside resembled a Nord tomb as well.

From ahead, a rat ran towards us. Saenus silently darted ahead and skewered it on his Imperial short-sword. I approved of his silence.

He walked a few steps ahead. He then paused and pointed to the left. I walked to where he stood and I saw that there was a large hole in the left wall. It led to a cave. There was a rat in the cave and he charged at us. Saenus silently dispatched the creature.

Normally I follow left branches: but this time I motioned to continue ahead, along the non-cave passage. As in the other Nord tombs that I had explored, the corridor did not go on for long before it led into a small room. We killed the rats there. Presumably the smugglers had cleared any Undead out already.

There were a few piles of bones and some large stones that had been carved with decorations or obscure ancient runes. I had seen such stones in other Nord tombs and also in spots here and there on the surface.

Two truncated stone cones, topped with flames, did little to light the area.

Here was another of those ice, but not ice, coffins.

"Saenus," I whispered, "have you seen these before?"

He shook his head.

I put my hand on it. It felt cool, like real ice.

"I've been finding then in Nord tombs around here. They look like ice and are pleasantly cool like ice ..."

He shivered.

"... but they are much harder. My sword can not chip then or scratch them. Ah well, too bad."

Saenus was looking impatient so I turned my attention to the actual task at hand. He pointed back the way we had come. He wanted to now explore the cave. I nodded.

Stealthily we both crept towards the cave. I was impressed that he could move so quietly. Most Legion troopers are useless at sneaking: they are accustomed to charging in and fighting it out ... much like myself at times. This last realization bothered me.

We entered the cave. Another of those stone cone flames provided dim illumination in the cave.

I chopped another rat into two and we followed the cave as it narrowed.

We followed the cave as it bent to the left and encountered our first smuggler. He was facing away from us and looked very Imperial in his full set of uniform armor.

He whirled around and looked at us with a shocked expression.

"Mus! How could you?" said Saenus from my side. Apparently he knew this man: this smuggler therefore had to be a soldier from the fort.

Mus bellowed "We're being attacked!" at the top of his lungs as he drew a silver axe and rushed us. I give him credit for fast recovery time. Saenus raised his shield to block but Mus swung at me instead. Chrysamere parried, effortlessly batting his axe aside. Saenus used this opportunity to get a swing in: it clanged off of Mus's armor.

I evaded a swing and brought my sword down on his raised shield, shattering it.

His axe clanged off of my cuirass. I could feel that it had a paralysis enchantment. My birth sign did not absorb it this time, but the paralysis resistance conveyed to me by Almalexia handled it.

Saenus scored a hit, taking a chunk out of his armor. My claymore then clove his head in two.

"I can't believe that Mus Roscius was part of this." Saenus said.

"So he's in the Legion?"

"Yes: that means this smuggling operation is an inside job, as I had suspected."

We waited silently for a minute. I did not hear anything. Mus's shouts should have brought the others, from wherever they they were, down on us.

I crept stealthily ahead, Saenus behind me.

The cave descended, then leveled off again. After a short time, the cave branched: we could go straight ahead, or to the right and steeply down. I chose to proceed ahead, leaving the right passage for later.

The passage did not go for long. It terminated in a chamber with a wooden platform in it. The platform had a barrel with a lit candle on it, two bed-rolls and a rat. I slew the rat.

Since it was still quiet, we searched the room. There was a chest containing Imperial weapons and armor. The barrel had miscellaneous treasure, such as one would find in any bandit or smugglers cave. There was even a packet of moon sugar.

I showed a packet to Saenus and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged.

We returned to the branching and descended.

There were two passages. I chose the right passage because I saw a figure there; a Redguard this time. He wore steel armor and an open troll bone helm.

He saw us, bellowed and raised his axe. It was silver and looked very much like the axe that Mus had used against us. I assumed it also had a paralysis enchantment. So much for talking to this smuggler.

I hit him with a fireball. Fortunately Saenus had not charged ahead, so I did not accidently burn him.

The Redguard reached us and chopped with his axe. Chrysamere smashed against his shield as Saenus swung with his sword.

I dodged the axe and kicked high, hitting him squarely in the chest. He staggered back and, before he could recover, his severed head flew through the air.

"Nice job, Saenus."

"So much for talking, eh?"

I frowned and replied, "I guess."

We retraced our steps to branching and took the other passage.

In a short time this led us to an opening into a larger cave. There was another of those Nord stones with fire on it and two Orcs in full Imperial armor.

"Hold!" I shouted. "I want to talk to you!"

"You will die!" they yelled in unison.

I sighed: how can one be nonviolent when everyone else is violent?

Saenus had some trouble: Orcs are renowned throughout Tamriel as very tough fighters. Fortunately, I was there: Orcs are no longer a challenge for me. I thrust with Chrysamere at the Orc in the imperial chain cuirass, punching through the chain mail and his heart, killing him straightaway.

Rapidly I extracted my blade and took the attack to the other Orc, who had just shattered Saenus's shield and was pressing his advantage.

My attack diverted the Orc, giving Saenus a needed respite.

The Orc swung, his sword bounced off my armor ... and again a paralysis enchantment hit me. I sensed a theme here. Despite my birth-sign and Almalexia's blessing, the paralysis took effect: I was motionless as a statue.

The Orc smiled and raised his axe. Suddenly, his head flew past me. Saenus had just recovered enough to decapitate the Orc for me. Nice timing.

The paralysis wore off. I handed Saenus a potion.

"It's healing potion; take it."

He thanked me and drank it.

"OK, Saenus: they are obviously not in a talking mood. They are beginning to annoy me. No more trying to be nice. Let's just waste 'em."

"I think you're right."

All attempts at sneaking abandoned, I strode forward. Bring them on: I was ready for action.

The cavern narrowed again. It widened again as it turned to the left.

We entered the last cavern. It was dead end. This chamber had a raised wooden platform. On the platform stood another Imperial in uniform armor, lacking only the helm.

I cast a fireball and ran towards him.

"No! No!", the man shouted. "Stop, Mercy!"

He dropped his weapon: a silver staff with a glow of enchantment on it that I suspected was paralysis. He fell to his knees. With difficulty I stopped my swing. I kicked the silver staff away. It clattered and fell off the edge of the platform.

"I appeal to your warm feminine nature: please don't kill me."

I laughed: I couldn't help it. It was just so ludicrous.

Chrysamere rested on one side of his neck, steady despite my laughter. Saenus's sword rested on the other side of his neck. Saenus looked to me. He was going to follow my cue: one signal from me and this smuggler would be no more.

The man looked scared. My laughter had probably instilled more fear in him more than anything else.

One of the beliefs that I share with my House is that an enemy who yields may not be slain honorably. I did not want to slay this man, but he did not know that.

"Hmm, let's see," I said, "I can kill you now. I could instead take you to the fort, where Carius will then kill you anyway. Seems to me, sera, that you are in a predicament."

"P-p-please, let me go. I'll never come back. I'll never smuggle again."

"So," Saenus said, "you'd prefer to live the life of an outlaw deserter than an honorable death? If we let you go now, and you are ever caught by the legion in the future, it will be the death penalty for you."

"Y-y-y-yes, please, let me escape! I'll take that chance! I don't want to die."

The man started to cry. I was flabbergasted. I had never seen an Imperial man in Legion uniform cry before. It was ... unnatural. It was as if water suddenly flowed uphill, or as if guars were to suddenly sprout wings and fly. I didn't know what to do. He continued to cry. The tears ran down his face.

"I-i-i I don't w-w-want to die," he sobbed.

As one, Saenus and I lifted our swords away from the sorry wailing Imperial.

With a surprising quickness, he leaped at Saenus and wrenched away his short-sword. My claymore sliced through empty air, too late to do any good.

"Suckers!" he shouted as he ran from the platform.

Without thought, fire came to me. A stream of flame found the running Imperial. He screamed briefly and then fell, quite dead.

"Stupid fetcher: I was just about to let him go."

I sheathed Chrysamere. Saenus picked himself and dusted himself off.

"Saenus, We've found the weapons and dealt with the smugglers. Let us return to the fort. I expect Carius will send a detail to haul all of this stuff back."

We returned. Captain Carius was pleased at our speedy and thorough handling of the matter.

"Rashelle, if you ever want to join the legion, please talk to me. You'd make an excellent trooper."

He meant it as a compliment, so I smiled.

Quite unfortunate that smugglers never want to settle things in a civilized manner. Instead they always want to lop your head off for barging in on their operation. The regretful thing is that oftentimes their equipment is far too rudimentary for them to enact said head lopping. Hopefully the experience with that last smuggler won't make Rashelle jaded and give no quarter to anyone no more. Surely, someone out there will realize when they're defeated and simply yield.

I like Rashelle more than allot characters in these stories, simply because she seems to dislike killing enough to actually give it a second thought.

"Warm femenine nature" ... wow, that's just...

Ah, I have just now begun to read this story, and I must say that it is most enjoyable. There is something in the way you write here--it is refreshing, in its way.

Err, warm? Hello, big Claymore, bare arms in a frigid snowed under climate, bad mood and still you say warm? Weird fellow. I would've liked to talk with him for a bit, after tying him up with some good rope.

I liked the teamwork between the two. And one last thing. It must be really hard for smugglers to recruit. I also wonder how they get to make a deal without cutting up their client.

Good grief! Blockie my dear you are becoming a post-machine! Just finished reading these two latest installments and of course they are awesome...as usual! Rashelle really is a great woman and I do like her. I also like your writing-style, I´ll quote a line that made me smile:



Hehe....Fryse Hags huh?

So Blockie....please keep the updates coming....I need a good read and a good smile! (t´s very healthy!)

Chapter 7. Decision



I stopped in to see Carnius at the East Empire Company offices again. He said there was nothing that needed doing. I thought this odd, as a new colony should be a mass of Things To Do. I kept this last to myself.

"As a matter of fact, the boat now goes there even though a dock has not yet been constructed. More men and supplies have been shipped there since you were there. The progress is excellent."

I thanked him for his time and left.

Marisa was on duty at the Cult chapel.

"Hey Marisa. How are you today?"

"Hello Rashelle. Much better. Thank you again."

"It was my pleasure."

A thought struck me and, impulsive as ever, I blurted it out; "Marissa, did you tell the Nords up at Thirsk to stop drinking mead?"

I felt bad to ask this question, as I then realized it would bring back the memories of her ordeal.

She shuddered and hugged herself.

"Oh Marisa, I'm sorry I brought it up."

She took a breath, closed her eyes, released it before speaking.

"No Rashelle, it is all right. Yes, I did, though the Cult has no actual ban on alcohol."

"Marisa, if it hurts to talk about it, forget I brought it up." I was curious but I not want to press her.

"I'm sorry Rashelle, it's just that I've had some ... experiences ... with the effects of mead. I can't talk about it. Drinking is fine, but mead is evil."

I nodded. I would have to leave it at that. I apologized for upsetting her and departed.

I left the fort and walked west, in the general direction of Raven Rock. I was headed there because I was curious as to how things were going. I also was going there because of my earlier resolve to reduce the damage done by the East Empire Company: it was time for me to start watching things and participating where I could.

I killed another of those damn Fryse Hags on the way, as well as the berserker, the bear, and the two spriggans that attacked me.

It was in the early afternoon when I reached the colony. I was amazed at what had been done: in the two days that I had been away, two buildings had been erected: a mine entrance and a house.

"Rashelle, good to see you," said a tired-looking Falco, "It's good that you've come around."

"Carnius said you had no need of me, but I want to lend a hand anyway."

"Why would he say that? We are very busy."

"That's what I figured."

"Look Rashelle, I assume Carnius wanted you more as a courier and troubleshooter, but I have many more ... well ... menial tasks that need doing. I feel embarrassed to ask this but we need them done."

"Go on, " I replied. "I want to help. Just don't ask me to cook: I never got beyond the 'kill it and grill it' stage."

He smiled.

For a few days I did various tasks along with the men. I worked on digging the mine: that was brutal. There are no spells for excavation so we all wielded miner's pick axes. I hunted. I did end up cooking ... once. They never asked me to cook again, though I did try my best. I don't know why my alchemy skill doesn't carry over into food preparation.

I assisted in the construction of houses, carrying out the unskilled portions of the work.

At one point, a snow bear attacked. I had heard of snow bears but this was the first time that I had seen one. The vicious creature cast a strong frost spell which of course hurt me not at all. The men were impressed by the rapidity by which I dispatched the beast.

Work continued. We slept in rotating shifts; therefore it was not a surprise that, when Falco's approaching footsteps woke me, it was still dark. I am a light sleeper, even after an exhausting shift of digging.

"Rashelle, we have a problem."

I rubbed my eyes, then looked questioningly up at him.

"There's a Nord, says he's from that Skaal place up north. He's blocked the mine entrance and won't let anyone in."

I stood up and said, "And you want me to get rid of him, don't you?"

I sighed as I sheathed Chrysamere: I didn't want to kill some unknown Nord.

"Rashelle, don't kill him!"

I raised an eyebrow. I had not expected such a sentiment from an East Empire Company employee. It was a welcome change.

"Rashelle, I don't want to annoy the people who already live here. I want to minimize the damage that the Company does here."

I was shocked. Falco was echoing my earlier private thoughts on the matter! This impressed me. I smiled and nodded. He pointed to the mine entrance. I could see a big Nord by the light of a torch.

I approached him.

"Aye lass, that armor fits you well. You'd make a pretty shield maiden, you would."

"The shield maidens are virgin warrior women," I answered.

He raised an eyebrow, surprised at my knowledge of Nord folklore. My reading of the other day was coming back to me.

"But who are the Fryse Hags?" I asked.

I suppose this was a silly thing to ask, as my business was to simply get rid of him, but ... I hated not knowing.

"They worship Kyne ... "

"... the mother of Men," I interrupted, "Her 'daughters' gave you Nords the thu'um or 'storm voice' ability. She is the widow of Shor, who was killed by the other gods for creating the Mundus. But what about the Hags themselves? What is their purpose? Where do they come from?"

Here he was, blocking the mine to protect the land, a goal I could agree with somewhat. Here I was, charged with the mission of getting rid of him ... yet I was instead conversing with him about Nord religion and folklore. I mentally shrugged. I sometimes had unusual impulses for handling situations, yet they often worked. I'd just continue on and see where it led me.

He seemed off balance, made nervous by either my knowledge or the direction of my questioning. When someone is off balance, you can often hit them with a question and get an answer that you would not otherwise.

"How is Erich The Unworthy? When I visited your village, he was still recovering from that wolf bite."

This last was an obvious lie, that I had just made up on impulse.

"Oh, err, he's doing fine. I think he mentioned you, come to think of it."

I had never been to the Skaal village. Erich was not of the Skaal, and was also no longer among the living. I had just caught this Nord in a lie. He was not from the Skaal village ... most interesting. It made matters easier: nothing I did would offend the Skaal.

He then recovered and said, "Be that as it may, you all need to clear out! You are ruining the land. There will be no digging into, uh, sacred Nord soil."

Riiiiiight ... and I can can sell you some prime real estate in Cyrodiil.

"You will leave now," I said.

"You going to make me, pretty-face?"

I decked him.

He picked himself up, rubbing his jaw.

"Ha! A lucky punch. Try it again!"

He raised his fists and sort of danced around in what was apparently supposed to be a combat stance.

I decked him again. I waited politely as he picked himself up, again.

"Feh! No mere woman is going to ... " he said as he leaped for me.

He lay on the ground, curled up around his stomach, where I had kicked him. As adamantium boots are kind of hard, I had somewhat pulled my kick, reducing the force of the impact so as to cause no permanent damage.

"... oog," he said after he recovered his breath. "You're strong for a woman."

"Ha! I'm strong for a man! Now do you want some more of that or are you going to scram?"

He slowly got up. I waited. He dusted himself off. My eyes met his. They dared him to try something.

"What are you? Some kind of Valkyrie?"

"I'm a sweet little innocent Breton spell-sword who can thrash you without breaking a sweat, who knows you are not of the Skaal, and who is recommending that you leave ... now."

He hesitated.

"The next kick will be lower. It will hurt more."

He fled.

The men began to clap.

"Nicely done!"

"Awesome!"

"Remind me not to mess with you."

I smiled and returned to Falco.

"Most impressive," he said, "and well done. Thank you."

"That man was not of the Skaal."

"What?"

"I caught him at a lie. I asked about someone who is not at the Skaal village. He didn't catch on."

Falco's face clouded up and he gave an almost imperceptible nod. This news did not surprise him. Interesting.

I waited.

Falco said nothing. It was apparent to me that he knew something that I did not ... and that he was not going to tell me. He didn't trust me. This was fair enough and I could understand the logic. Perhaps at a later time he would decide that he could tell me.

The next day or so passed without incident: we made further progress both at construction on the surface and excavation below the surface. The men now did not have to all sleep in one house.

The pick axes, which we used to dig in the rock, were wearing out. Two had become useless already.

"Rashelle," said Falco, "as we now have more men than tools, you are freed up for other tasks."

I nodded.

"I would like you to return to the fort and inform Carnius of our progress. Also I would like you to ask him to see about getting us more pick axes."

I nodded.

"Thank you Rashelle."

I cast Divine Intervention and was returned to the fort. I entered the Imperial Cult chapel building and ran up the spiraling stairs to the second floor.

"Good morning Rashelle," said Carnius. "I have work for you."

I nodded.

"I'd like you to retrieve a shipping manifest for me. Normal procedure is for any manifest to be brought to me after each shipment. A ship was due at Raven Rock yesterday."

This was news to me. There had been no ship yesterday, nor had Falco been expecting a ship.

An instinct made me unwilling to reveal to Carnius that I had just come from Raven Rock so I simply nodded and said: "Right, I'm on it."

"Thank you Rashelle."

I left the office and then cast Recall. I had cast a Mark spell in Raven Rock a few days ago, so I was teleported to Raven Rock, within a few paces of where Falco happened to be standing.

"Falco, Carnius asked me to bring him a shipping manifest, yet we have not had a shipment."

"Strange."

"Indeed."

"I wonder if there has been a ship, but it is lost at sea or something. Maybe they had to put in at an inlet or natural harbor elsewhere on the island."

As the sea between Vvardenfell and the the rest of Tamriel is little more than a channel, and as the distance between Solstheim and Vvardenfell is not much wider, I expected that it would be impossible to get lost ... though perhaps a storm at sea had thrown them off course.

"Rashelle, the only thing I can say is to ask around. Perhaps one of the men saw a ship yesterday or during the night or something."

I nodded. It was weak, but I could not think of a better idea.

I asked around and one of the men said that he had noticed a light to the northwest, some time last night.

After informing Falco of this news, I headed northwest.

I entered into an area that was familiar: I walked past the snow covered entrance to Geilir the Mumbling's place.

On the coastline, a little bit west of Geilir's place, I found the ship. It was half out of the water, as if some idiot had decided to ram the land. On impact the ship must have turned: the port side faced me, and the starboard side faced the sea.

I had never seen draugr outside of a tomb before: there were three of them near the ship. In good light they were even uglier. They were eating the corpses of the crew. I shuddered. I had been told that the draugr fed on the living but to actually see it was a shock.

They spotted me and rushed to attack. With fire and sword, I finished them off. I then approached the ship and examined the corpses. Each one had its throat torn out. Portions of the bodies were missing; presumably eaten by the Draugr. I recognized the corpse of the Bosmer ship captain who had taken the men and I to to the colony the other day.

I cast a brief levitation spell and rose up in the air. I then settled onto the tilted deck just as the spell cut out. It looked as if there were no survivors but I was going to search the boat: we needed mining picks.

I found a hatchway and descended below decks.

On board were a variety of supplies. Since the ship was mostly above the water, it appeared that much of the cargo was still in good condition. There were crates of ash yams, clothing, nails, tools and other necessities. I would not take them now: I was focused on the miner's pick axes. I found five picks scattered in various locations. The cargo had shifted when the ship crashed. Whoever had stowed the cargo on board was an idiot. Good dock workers know to pack the cargo in a ship so that it cannot move, no matter what conditions the ship sails through.

Pick axes clutched in my hands, I ascended the ladder topside.

I was about to cast a Recall spell, when I heard a faint sobbing. It sounded like a woman.

I jumped to the ground, dumped the picks, and slowly began to walk along the side of the ship. I heard nothing, now. I continued to walk. I passed the bow of the ship and turned. I was standing in the water now and could see the starboard side of the ship. There was an Imperial woman in the water, huddled against the ship. She had shoulder length dark brown hair and wore an expensive looking skirt and blouse. The skirt was drenched. She shivered and looked most pitiful. Her face was streaked with tears and ruined makeup.

She saw me and said "Get the horrible creatures away."

"I've slain them."

I held my hand out. She grasped it and I then pulled her up. Closer, I could see that her eyes were grey.

I led her out from behind the ship.

She saw the dead draugr and shrieked "Get the horrible creatures away!"

"Shh, it's OK now. Those draugr are dead!"

She saw the bloody corpses and kept screaming.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

"SHUT UP, you stupid woman! Do you want to draw every beast in Solstheim here? Be quiet!"

She gulped and nodded.

She shivered. Her clothing might be nice for a dinner party in a rich mansion in Cyrodiil, but was certainly not appropriate for this environment.

"I am Rashelle. What happened here?"

"I'm Apronia Alfena. We were on the way to Raven Rock. The weather started to get bad. The captain was a wood elf."

The uninformed often use the term "wood elf" to refer to the Bosmeri.

"Wood elves live in the trees! They know nothing about oceans and ships and things like that."

There was truth to this: I had been surprised when I first met the Bosmer ship captain the other day.

"The next thing I knew, the whole ship shook and then shuddered. There was a horrid breaking sound. It hurt my ears! Then the boat was here on the land, not in the water!

"These, these, these THINGS came and ... and ..."

She started to cry.

"I-I-I hid. I was in the cold wet water. They wandered around but could not see me. I've been there since last night. I'm drenched and I'm cold and I'm tired."

"We are in the wilderness," I said. "We are northwest of the Raven rock colony. I can give you a Divine Intervention Potion. You will be teleported to the Imperial fort. You will be safe there."

"No, I want to go to Raven Rock. That is why I was on board the ship."

"Very well, then. I'm going to take you there, but you have got to be quiet and you have got to obey me. Can you do that?"

She nodded.

"I'll fetch you something to eat from the ship."

She shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "I can't eat after seeing this. I feel sick."

Incongruously she gave out a small burp.

"Oog. Oh, excuse me."

"Take off your shoes," I said as I retrieved the pick axes.

"What is this, some creepy religious ritual?"

"Those are high heels. you will not be able to walk in them."

"Oh, but they cost almost 100 drakes," she whined.

I was fast losing patience with this woman.

"Look Apronia: just do as I say or you stay here, OK?"

She took off her shoes.

"Let's go."

I strode ahead.

"Wait for me, I can't go that fast!"

I had to slow my pace.

I wondered if I could get her to carry some of the pick axes but I expect she couldn't even carry even one of them for very long.

She tripped on a branch and cursed in an un-ladylike manner.

As we passed by Geilir the Mumbling's place, I thought about taking her there to rest. I decided that I could not impose on him so we pressed on, southeast, in the direction of the colony.

She stumbled again. A long skirt is just not the proper attire for the snowy wilderness of Solstheim. If we encountered a Hag, and if the Hag attacked, I could have Apronia change into her clothes.

A spriggan rushed towards us.

"Stay still and be quiet! I will handle this!" I hissed as I dropped the pick axes.

Trembling, she nodded ... silently, for which I was glad.

I fought and killed the spriggan.

"It will come back to life twice more. Don't panic."

As I fought the spriggan for the second time, I could hear, and then see, that Apronia was being menaced by a wolf. Oddly enough the wolf seemed content to growl at her threateningly, without attacking her. Perhaps her hysterical shrieking was bothering its ears? It certainly bothered mine.

I finished off the spriggan. Quickly, I turned to the wolf and dispatched it. I then whirled around, expecting to face the Spriggan for a third time. The creature did not rise again: someone else must have killed it once already.

Apronia kept screaming. The sound was ripping through my head.

"Shut the oblivion up! The fetcher is dead already!"

I gave her my Look. It succeeded in silencing her.

I could not go on. She was too slow. Everything made her scream. I'd go mad before we made it to the colony ... or I would kill her.

Before she could react, I picked her up. I had one arm under her legs and one under her shoulders. She squealed and kicked her feet.

"Shut up and quit wiggling! I'm trying to save your sorry butt!"

She whimpered, but quietly.

I'd come back for the miner's picks later.

Finally, I could travel at speed. I ran as fast as the terrain would allow. She threw her arms around my neck, closed her eyes tightly and whimpered. The poor woman was terrified: I felt a little upset, but it was faster this way! We could avoid fighting most of the creatures. When we reached an area without snow on the ground, I picked up more speed. Some creatures tried to attack but I left them behind.

I had to slow down as we reached partially snow-covered ground. Ahead of us reared a bear. I didn't want to drop Apronia so I tried a targeted paralyze spell. It is tough to cast with a burden in one's arms but it can be done. This spell didn't always work, but this time fortune was with me. I left the motionless bear behind and continued my run.

I was relieved when we finally reached Raven Rock.

Falco raised an eyebrow as he saw me run into the colony, Apronia in my arms.

"Falco. I found the ship, northwest of here. This woman is the only survivor."

I spoke to her: "Apronia, we are here. Please let go of me and stand up."

She opened her eyes and fearfully looked around.

"Apronia. I am going to put you down now. Let go please."

She did. I released her and stood her up. One of the men threw a blanket over her shoulders.

"T-Thank you," she said.

The men sat her down by the fire.

"Oh, and guys?" I said.

They looked towards me.

"No funny stuff. She's under my protection, OK?"

"Yes sera!" they chorused.

I turned to Falco, who said, "That was a good thing you did, rescuing her. What happened?"

"Ship ran aground. Draugr attacked. She hid and survived. The rest were killed."

He nodded.

"Rashelle?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sure it seemed cold of me to ask this, but did you find any ..."

I interrupted: "I'll fetch them now. I'll be back shortly."

The miner's pick axes were where I had dropped them and I Recalled back to the colony.

"Thank you Rashelle."

I nodded.

"Rashelle, may I speak with you in private?"

He waved an arm and walked south, towards the water. I followed. He stopped when we reached the shore.

"Now we are out of earshot and also far enough away that no one watching can lip-read our conversation. We have things to discuss, Rashelle."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I volunteered for this assignment. I know how the Empire, and how certain people in the Company, do things. I want this colony to be successful. I want to do this without damaging the land, as much as I can. I don't want some executive's private agenda ruining things."

I nodded.

"We've come to a crossroads. It's time for you to make a decision."

I waited.

"I am suspicious of Carnius Magius. He is up to something. He is always up to something. He has a history. For every project that he manages, he always has a second, secret, project. This second project exists solely for the sake of lining his pockets and filling his coffers. He gets rich and everyone else suffers. He skims, he schemes, and he destroys. Nothing can be proved, of course."

I sensed truth here. I had a gut feeling. Carnius had been pleasant to me, but I recalled his contempt for Red-spear. Carnius's unwillingness to send me over to help the colony had already raised a small suspicion. Falco's little speech had caused the suspicion to grow in size.

And who had sent that Nord?

"Rashelle, I want the colony to work. I want it to thrive. I want to not offend the Skaal or the people up at Thirsk. Eventually I see trade with them. I want to be good neighbors.

"I want you to take your orders only from me, not from Carnius. You must decide now if you are going to follow him or me."

I don't like being made to decide things "now". Still, I took a second or two to consider.

Carnius, disdainful of the natives, directing from his office.

Falco, who led directly, who got his hands dirty along with the rest of us and who shared my desire to minimize the damage that the Empire caused.

The choice was easy.

"I will follow you from here on, Falco. My own reason for joining up is to reduce the negative effects on the land and people as much as I can."

He smiled, a relieved sort of smile.

"Thank you, Rashelle. Now I can tell you the rest."

He did so. Though he knew not what it was, he knew that there was something here that Carnius wanted. He wanted it more than the ebony. This last was a puzzle: I could not think of anything more valuable than ebony. Neither could Falco.

"Back to work?" he asked.

"Back to work." I answered.

I looked up at the sky. The position of the sun indicated that it was in the mid to late afternoon.

Nice stuff. Good dialogue with the Nord and Apronia. Too bad about the Bosmer captain though. I like Bosmer.

Hmm, what would Carnius want? I could search the Uesp and get the answer, but that would take the fun out of it. Personally, I'm going to guess that it's Stalhrim. If steel can't bloody cut it. (Or Chrysamere for that matter.) I bet it will be worth a fortune and being found only on Solstheim, he'd have the monopoly. And finally, Stalhrim doesn't fall under the same rules as Ebony so he could smuggle at will.

Oh, now I also know why the native Nords would hate his guts. They use it to bury their dead, right? Mining and exporting Stalhrim would be like graverobbery.

Another strong update. I too enjoyed Rashelle's interaction with our lone boat survivor. Excellently written. Keep it up!

Chapter 8. Attack



"Go tell Carnius about the ship. He'll need to know. In the meantime, some of the men and I will go to the shipwreck and see to the dead and to the supplies on board."

"Right, Falco. I'm on it."

I cast Divine Intervention and was teleported to the fort.

I saw Severia. She smiled and greeted me; "Hail, Rashelle! How can I help you, my sister-in-arms?"

"Hello, Severia. Good to see you again."

I told her of the shipwreck and that I was on my way to bring the news to Carnius. She bid me good afternoon and I entered the Imperial Cult building.

"Good afternoon, Rashelle," said Carnius after I entered his office. "Have you the manifest?"

"Carnius, the ship was wrecked. It ran aground on the west coast."

He swore and pounded his desk with considerable force. The man was stronger than he looked.

I waited.

"Thank you for informing me of this."

He swore again.

"It's setbacks like this that bother me! I hate things that I cannot control!"

I remained silent.

"I'm sorry Rashelle, this news has just upset me."

"Understandable. All but one on board were killed."

"Now, I'll have to charter another ship for the run. That's going to eat into my profits. Well, I've no work for you at the moment. Thank you, Rashelle."

I nodded and left. Carnius had been unconcerned about the people who had died. I also disliked the fact that he had said "my" profits. Just then, I had seen part of the "real" Carnius coming through. I didn't like it. I was glad that I had allied myself with Falco.

I stood outside and looked up at the sky again: there was not much daylight left. I wondered if I could treat myself to dinner at the fort before heading back to Raven rock. The colony could function without me for an hour or so.

Looking to the north archway, I saw Reinhardt Red-spear. An idea formed in my mind and I walked over to him.

"Still interested in some work?"

"Aye, lass, indeed I am."

"Can you handle a pick axe?"

He nodded.

"Can you cook?"

He nodded.

"How do you feel about the Raven Rock colony?"

He sighed. "It was unavoidable, I suppose. The ebony there was going to attract the Empire eventually. I just hope they don't damage the land too much."

"If you were to work at Raven Rock, you could help to lessen the negative impact. I've been working there the past few days. We could use the help."

"That Carnius fellow won't hire me."

I smiled.

"Don't you worry about that. Go there now and speak to Falco. He's the Imperial in the armor. Tell him I sent you. Mention 'kill it and grill it' and he'll know that I sent you."

He raised both eyebrows.

"Kill it and grill it," I repeated. "Got it?"

"I don't get it, but I got it."

"Excellent. I'll see you there at some point."

He strode off towards the west. I estimated that he'd get there shortly after sunset.

I ran into Saenus Lusius. He told me that most of the smuggled weapons had been moved from the caverns back to the armory.

Procis Catraso waved from where he paced atop the wall. Obviously, he had watch duty again. I returned his wave and then turned to walk towards the Cult building again: I would see if more of certain ingredients had arrived.

"Rashelle."

I turned and there was Severia again.

"Have you time for dinner?"

"I was thinking of that before, actually," I said, "but I really need to clean up first."

"No problem, follow me."

She led me to an area of the fort I had not yet explored. We stopped at a door. Severia knocked imperiously and shouted "Female officer present! You have thirty seconds to clear out!"

I jumped. Imperials, when they want to, have a way of commanding with their voice. Her military training had probably enhanced this talent. Even though I knew of this ability, it still affected me.

I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. She grinned knowingly and said nothing.

The door banged open and a wet Dunmer partially in uniform armor scurried past us, pausing only to salute Severia. He carried a towel and the rest of his apparel.

"After you, Rashelle."

I entered and found myself in a stone room. There was a rack of towels to one side. Buckets, some filled with water, lined a wall. Three wooden tubs were against the far wall.

"Cold water only, but I expect that won't bother you. The soap is over there." She pointed. "I'll stand watch as you wash up."

"Thank you."

I stripped and washed the worst of the dirt off. After I dried myself and dressed, I felt a new woman.

"Thank you, Severia."

"There's still a little time before dinner starts. I'm doing my rounds. Walk with me?"

"Rounds?"

"It is always a good idea for me to randomly poke around the fort every few hours. I do rounds several times a day. Knowing that an officer could appear anywhere, at any time, keeps the troops out of trouble."

I grinned and said, "Nice."

I accompanied her. She took me through areas of the fort that I had not yet explored. She gave me a running commentary as we patrolled. It was very interesting, full of gossip and snippets of useful information.

Dinner was not the festive party that it had been the last time, as that had been a special occasion ... yet it was still pleasant. The food was certainly better than what I'd been eating the past few days.

The sun had already set as we exited the mess hall, sober this time.

"Thank you again Severia. I've got to go back to the colony now. There is so much work to be done."

"I understand: duty calls."

I heard a deep howling, as if a pack of ... large .. wolves were nearby.

"Werewolves!" shouted one of the men from atop the wall.

Quick as thought, I drew Chrysamere. Severia had her blade out as well.

Through the archways they came, larger than wolves. Unlike natural wolves, they ran like men, on two legs. They were fast and upon us in an instant.

Once again I stepped into the fray, my claymore swinging in long arcs as it cut through werewolves. Individually, they were not so formidable, but in pack like this they were quite deadly. As I cut one down, another slashed at my cuirass.

I threw the the body of one just-dispatched creature at a second one. Claws from another attacker only missed my face because I pulled my head back rapidly.

I kicked a creature that had been menacing Gaea. I then felt a impact from behind and I was suddenly down, a werewolf on top of me. It snarled. I wriggled and twisted over to get at him. An arrow suddenly appeared in his eye, presumably from one of the troopers on the wall. It was a good shot: the arrow had found the brain, killing the beast instantly.

I pushed the now-dead werewolf away from me. Another one attacked me. Still on the ground, I rolled rapidly to one side and thrust with Chrysamere. I yanked my blade from the body and stood up.

Something hit my cuirass: another attack from behind. I whirled around to see another creature. I slew it and then looked for the next one.

Saenus was fighting two werewolves and I could see that he was bleeding. I ran to assist him. With one swing, I decapitated one of the creatures. He then was able to finish the other one.

"Many thanks, Rashelle."

There wasn't time to hand him a potion: we were both immediately engaged in further combat.

As I fought, I could see that some of the bodies of the dead creatures were shimmering and changing. I tried to not let this distract me as I severed an arm from another werewolf. He howled in pain and fell. As I dispatched him, I noted that some of the bodies had finished changing and were now naked Nords. On death, their lycanthropy ended.

As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. I slowly turned and surveyed the aftereffects of the battle.

The well in the center of the fort had been damaged, its roof torn away. The doors to each building had been demolished: some werewolves must have gone inside. The stone walls were obviously undamaged: while werewolves are strong, even the strongest claws cannot break stone.

There were dead naked Nords all around me, as well as some dead and wounded troopers. I gave potions to the wounded. Joleen and Marisa were also outside now, also handing out potions or simply applying healing spells, depending on the severity of the injuries.

"Rashelle,"

I turned to see Gaea and Severia approaching me.

"Thank you for your help," said Gaea. "You've saved many lives. We have an additional problem, though. Captain Carius is missing."

"Was he killed?"

"No; missing. We've done a quick search: no body. Werewolves were seen running up the stairs heading for his office. They never came back down. They have not been found, nor has the captain. It looks as if they kidnapped him and were somehow teleported away.

"Rashelle, I need to find out where those werewolves came from. Are they going to come back? Were they sent by someone? Though I cannot be sure, I suspect that the Skaal are behind this."

Again, mention of the Skaal: I really needed to pay them a visit. I was tired of hearing rumors about them: I wanted to see for myself what they were really like. Perhaps they could even provide me with information on the Fryse Hags.

Gaea continued; "I would like you to go to the Skaal, gain their trust and get them to talk to you."

She handed me ... a skull.

I looked questioningly at her.

"We found this skull in a Nord tomb. If you return it to the Skaal, they might be more inclined to talk."

I took the skull. That seemed to be weak logic but I would do it.

"Thank you Rashelle. I would like you to head out first thing in the morning, if that is OK with you."

"I'll go now. The wounded have been attended to and I see no reason for me to wait."

"Are you sure? It's dark now."

"Yes."

"Good luck, Rashelle."

I cast Recall and was teleported to the colony. Falco had returned from the shipwreck so I was able to talk to him. He had already put Reinhardt to work. I thanked him and updated him regarding events at the fort. Lastly, I explained that I would be away for a time.

"Rashelle, I understand. For all we know, those werewolves could attack us here in Raven Rock next. It is best that you go to the Skaal and sort things out."

I cast Intervention and returned to the fort. I then left through the north arch.

I walked for an hour or so. The only novel happening was an attack by a snow wolf. Like the snow bears, they can cast frost damage spells.

It was getting late but still I pressed on: I was not in the mood to stop just yet and the light from one of the moons (the other was not up yet) reflected off of the snow on the ground, casting everything in a glowing blue hue and providing some illumination. With all of the snow in Solstheim, it almost never gets truly dark.

I marveled at how snow made everything look better. I tried to imagine what the Ashlands would look like if they were covered in snow.

My thoughts were interrupted by the rapid clomping of hooves: two frost boar, rode by rieklings. I took a few minutes to fight them and then continued on my way.

I entered an area where there were more trees, thickly grouped together. They were snow covered, and they were beautiful in the moonlight.

An instinct warned me, but it too late: a net dropped down on me. Weights on the edges of the net had sped its descent and now kept it down. I slashed with my claymore but of course that did not work.

Out of the woods, on all sides, rushed many Fryse Hags. From above, another hag tackled me. Presumably, she had thrown the net.

Fire came to me, as that seems to be the one magic that I can perform without conscious thought.

I rolled on the ground, through the pieces of burning net. My fist smashed into the jaw of the Hag that was on top of me.

I felt several frost-enchanted daggers and one spark-sword cut into me, yet still I fought on. Rising, but not yet standing, I beheaded one hag. My foot shot out and kicked another one.

I was standing now. One leaped for me and I skewered her on my blade. A dagger dug into me as I was pulling my sword free: she'd slid it between the cuirass and my shoulder. My birth sign absorbed the enchantment but the blade had pierced deeply. A wave of pain rushed through me but I did not have time to heal it, or even to remove the dagger.

Silently I slashed at her. She dodged back as another dagger bounced off of my cuirass.

I cast a fireball and another Hag was out of the fray, screaming horribly as she burned.

There was a pause. The four remaining Hags warily circled me, out of my reach. I turned and glared. The dagger was still embedded in my shoulder.

"Who's next?" I hissed.

One rushed towards me. She impaled herself on my sword. I don't mean this as a figure of speech ... this one looked me in the eyes and actually, in a purposeful manor, ran into my blade. Her eyes dulled with pain, yet she somehow pressed herself forward a few inches more before dying.

The others attacked. As my sword was entangled, I was at a great disadvantage. That Hag had killed herself just to make it easier for the others to attack me. This was a disturbing realization.

I threw the body, with Chrysamere still embedded in it, at one of the Hags. I would have to finish this without my claymore. Dodging to the right, I elbowed the rightmost Hag aside. I then grasped the leftmost Hag's dagger-hand wrist and jerked as hard as I could. My muscles bulged, the pain in my shoulder made me see stars, and she went flying. I heard a thunk and a snapping sound.

I spun and kicked one of the two remaining Hags. The other one slashed at my arm. I punched her once in the stomach, then the jaw. I chopped at her throat with the edge of my hand. She fell and made a gasping and wheezing sound.

The Hag that I had kicked, just before, came at me again with her dagger raised. I kicked once and the dagger was gone. I kicked again and she was down. With a dagger pulled from a corpse, I slashed and she was dead.

I then dispatched the gasping Hag.

I looked around for the Hag that I had thrown, as I expected her to return and resume her murderous intentions. She lay dead by a tree, her head at an unnatural angle: she'd hit the trunk and snapped her neck.

Finally I was able to pull that dagger from my shoulder. Blood gushed from the wound. I poured one healing potion directly on the injury and then drank a second potion.

I retrieved my sword and wiped it clean on the fur shirt of one of the Hags.

I'd never encountered so many Hags at once before. That net had been a new trick. Were they now hunting me? But how could they? Every Hag that I had encountered I had killed: word of a strange Breton in ebony could not get back to the other Hags.

Then I recalled the one Hag who I had not killed. She was the one that I had tried to talk to the other day. It looked as if my merciful impulse had almost gotten me killed.

But that was paranoid! Why would a bunch of psycho Nord women want to ... hunt me. I was not important. In Vvardenfell I was the Nerevarine but here I was nobody: there was no reason to focus on me. Then again, if I were really dealing with psychos, their reason would be unfathomable to me.

There was no rational reason to believe that the Hags were hunting specifically for me ... but I had a gut feeling. I knew that they were hunting me ... as if I were an animal. A rage began to build. This animal has claws. I would take the hunt to them. If it was war they wanted, then I would bring it to them.

I contemplated commencing my Hag hunt immediately, wandering the entire night, hunting and killing as many as I could find.

Reason reasserted itself: I had made a promise to find the Skaal village and ascertain about the captain and the werewolves.

I keep my promises: I do not go back on my word. I value this more than anything. Money is ephemeral. Possessions can be taken. Your word is all you have. If you break that, you have nothing. I continued to travel towards the Skaal village.

It was late when I reached Thirsk. I could possibly press on and reach my destination, most likely before dawn ... but I don't think a tired-looking Breton would make a good first impression.

I looked at the mead hall and dithered. Marisa had suffered here. I'd already killed one of their own. I had no good memories of this place. Still, the chieftain had seemed a decent sort, as had Svenga Snow-Song.

But could I forgive the rest of them for what had happened?

I recalled my last conversation with Salas Valor. His ghost had forgiven me though I had slain him. The victims of the ash storms had forgiven me. Marisa had forgiven Svenga. If Marisa, the actual victim, could forgive ... then I should be able to as well. Still I hesitated.

The night had gotten cold, too cold even for me. While I had kept moving it had not been that noticeable but now that I had stopped, I was uncomfortable.

Through the clear cold night air I could hear singing from inside Thirsk.

Outside, cold and dark. Inside, warmth, song and light.

Focus Rashelle. Focus.

I opened the door and stepped inside.

The hall was as I had remembered it, though this time it was crowded: the party was in full swing. Nords, both women and men, stood near the center of the room or sat at tables near the side, singing. Here and there some had passed out.

They saw me.

The sudden quiet was a palpable shock. They had all stopped singing, save for one very drunk woman who song a few more words and then stopped, looking around in confusion.

"washh gon on?" she said. She belched and put her head on the table.

You could cut the tension with a dagger. Would I have to fight after all? I really did not want to.

From the crowd in the middle strode Skjoldr Wolf-runner, the chieftain of Thirsk.

"Rashelle, I am glad to see you. you have done a great service to Thirsk. I am grateful. Welcome."

I waited. We all waited.

"Lass, can you forgive us?"

He paused.

"Can you forgive me?" he asked.

"I'm not sure if I can."

Silence.

"But I will try."

He grinned and said, "Thank you."

The festivities resumed. Seemingly out of nowhere, Svenja Snow-Song appeared and hugged me.

"Oh Rashelle, I'm glad you came back. Really, I am."

I smiled. I was glad to see her again.

"What will you have?" she said. "Whatever you want, it's on the house."

"All I want right now is a warm place to sleep."

"You do look tired. Let's see what we can arrange."

She put an arm around me and steered me through the crowd. We reached those same stairs. I halted and then drew away from her.

"I do not have a happy memory from up there, Svenja."

"I know, but you've killed that swine ... for which we are all thankful. Things are better now, you'll see."

She took my hand and said, "Come on. It's OK."

She pitched her voice like a herder coaxing a skittish guar.

"Please," she said. "It will be OK."

She tugged gently on my hand.

I nodded. She led me up the stairs.

And so it begins, the Bloodmoon!

Oh, and those hags really need to get their behind whacked by a Kagouti.

Just read two awesome updates!....Gets me in the mood for a shortie.....yeah..truly inspirational it is....I can´t wait for the continuation.

This Hag situation is a rather neat side-plot. I'm very interested in seeing how Rashelle will solve this problem. Hopefully it won't require mass slaughter but if that's how things go down, that's how they go down. Excellent work!

Thank you all again for your comments.

Dire Cheesecake:
Rashelle has a very warm and feminine nature, when in the appropriate situation. That wasn't it.


Minque:
Thanks. It's a challange for me (a male) to write a female character, so to have positive feedback from a real woman is reassuring.


Jack Cloudy:
Sorry, here I was just following the way it went in the game. I think that's the only Bosmer death in the story, if it helps any.


Metal Mallet:
Thank you. We'll be seeing more of Apronia. She's fun to write.

Carnius is also fun to write: he writes himself. I find myself having to hold him back, though. That poor desk, he keeps hitting it!


Metal Mallet:
I'm still working on the details of this plot so it's hard to say. It is one of two original (not in the game) sideplots so we'll just see how they go. I also hope to avoid another mass slaughter but ... well ... hey ... it happens.


And now ...

--

Chapter 9. Skaal



"More tea, Rashelle?" said Svenja Snow-Song.

"No, thank you."

Most of Thirsk was still asleep. I had risen early because I tend to do that anyway and because I had things to do. Svenja also was an early riser. She told me that she liked the mornings because she could get much of the administrative tasks of Thirsk done without interruptions.

Though Skjoldr Wolf-Runner was the chieftain, Svenja handled many of the day-to-day details of Thirsk operations. She tracked the inventory, ordered more mead as needed, and coordinated the occasional hunting parties. She was effectively his second in command.

"While Thirsk was originally founded by members of the Skaal, and while we are on good terms with them, there is not much to say about them. Their village is to the north. They respect nature and the wilderness. Wolves and bears in particular, they hold in high regard."

I nodded.

"As such, they might know more about these werewolves of yours."

"I'm just surprised that this happened though neither of the moons were full."

"Oh Rashelle, that whole moon phase thing is just folklore. Werewolves change every night."

I raised an eyebrow.

She shrugged. "Maybe the werewolves in Cyrodill are different."

Indeed. Good to know.

"Silver hurts them. Any silver weapon does much greater damage than an equivalent non-silver weapon."

I nodded. That much I knew already.

"What do you know of the Fryse Hags?"

She told me what she knew, which revealed no new information save for one interesting fact: Hags would often lurk about near Fort Frostmoth and watch. When anyone left the fort, they would follow. A runner would be sent ahead to where the others waited and they would set up a trap. This shed a new insight as to last night's ambush. They may not have been hunting me in particular: they had simply attacked me because I had come from the fort.

While their murderous intentions were still a danger, I was nonetheless relieved to learn that it was not part of some larger scheme which targeted me in particular.

She sighed sadly and said, "I guess it's time for you to resume your trip to the Skaal."

"Yes, it is. Thank you for putting me up for the night, and for this wonderful breakfast, and for the conversation."

She smiled. "It was my pleasure."

She accompanied me to the door. I opened it and looked out upon a clean white landscape of snow and sunlight.

"Rashelle. Do take care ... and come back, OK?"

I smiled and said: "I will, Svenja. Thank you again."

I set off north again, with a spring in my step. I was glad that I had stopped at Thirsk. I felt much refreshed and I felt better about the people there.

With an astonishing rapidity, the clear sunny day turned to clouds, then to snow. I strode on, enjoying the sensation of the cold wind on my face & arms and the sight of the swirling flakes in the air. It was a good day.

After fighting a berserker, my thoughts wandered to the skull that I had been given at the fort. What would the reaction of the Skaal be if I tried to give it to them? I took the skull from my pack and examined it. It was a perfectly ordinary skull. There was no magic in it. There were no markings on it. There was nothing to distinguish it from any other skull: I could have obtained it anywhere. I'd look a right fool trying to give it to them. Yes, I was an Outlander, ignorant in their ways, but to try to pass off a skull as a gift would be an insult: it would show that I did not care enough to bother to learn their ways. A condescending and clueless individual might stroll into their midst and think to placate them with a simple skull ... but not I.

"Whoever you were, skull, I am sorry," I said as I placed the skull on the ground.

I continued on my way.

I was surprised when I found the Skaal village: it had not been as great a distance as I had expected.

The village had been built upon a plateau. There were many houses, constructed of a dark wood, some painted in cheerful bright colors that contrasted nicely against the white of the snow. Nords, some in dark fur robes, others in Nordic mail armor, walked about. They ignored me. Such a reaction did not offend me because this was exactly how it had been when I had first encountered the Ashlander camps.

As with the Ashlanders, I would have to carefully and politely work my way up the chain of command until I was allowed to speak to whoever they thought I should speak to, most likely either a person designated to negotiate with outlanders or the chieftain himself.

Using the logic that the fellows in armor were guards, I approached one of them first.

"Ha! That's hardly proper clothing for this weather, lass." He said.

He continued in a mocking tone: "Are you lost? Did you come here because you're freezing? Or did the big bad beasts bite you?"

"I am quite comfortable, thank you. I enjoy the cold."

He studied me, a perplexed look on his face.

"In this snow, with bare arms, you are not shivering ... not at all. 'Tis very unusual."

"Sera, I come here to ask .... "

He held up his hand. I stopped.

"You are a stranger here."

I gave him points for his powers of observation.

"You need to talk to our chieftain. He is in the Great Hall."

He pointed to a building. It was the largest one there: hence the name. I've never known a village or town to have a Tiny Hall or a Lesser Hall.

The guard continued. "His name is Tharsten Heart-Fang and he will know how to deal with you."

He rudely strode away as just I began to thank him. He wanted to offend me, to provoke me: it was a test. I grinned. This was just as it had been with the Ashlanders.

I approached and entered the Great Hall. The interior reminded me much of the interior of Thirsk. The most striking feature of the Hall was a large stuffed cliff racer that hung from the ceiling.

"Talk to the chieftain," said a guard in the hall before I could say a word. He pointed to a man near the back.

I approached the man and introduced myself.

"You are not of the Skaal. While the Skaal wish you no harm, you do not belong here."

"Chieftain of the Skaal, I come here in search of your wisdom. Yesterday, Fort Frostmoth was attacked by werewolves."

"Those Imperial fetchers. Always causing trouble."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Look lass: you outlanders come in, take what you want with no consideration for nature. The land suffers. You throw off the great balance. The All Maker is displeased."

"Do you know anything about those werewolves?"

His face reddened.

"Are you insinuating that the Skaal are behind that werewolf attack?"

I sighed.

"No, muthsera, though some at the fort think so. I only want to ascertain what happened and why it happened and I thought that the Skaal, being more attuned to nature, would have some information."

"I do not know about your werewolves ... but this disturbs me. If werewolves really attacked your fort, where might they attack next? Would they attack us?"

I waited.

"The balance of nature has been disrupted by the Imperial activities. They come and they take the ebony from the ground. They cut down trees and they take and take. What they do not take, they destroy. There is much to atone for."

I frowned. I could not refute this.

He pointed to me.

"We Skaal are closely tied to the bears, to the wolves, to nature. The Imperial activities here have lessoned our power. You must restore the power of the Skaal by performing a ritual which will recharge the natural energies of the Land. The balance will be restored and the All-Maker will be pleased."

"Tell me what to do," I said.

He looked surprised. He had probably expected me to mumble an excuse and leave. While I did not know what this "All Maker" was, I agreed with everything that he had said about the Imperials.

"I deny nothing you are saying," I continued. "While I cannot stop the East Empire Company from establishing the colony at Raven Rock, I have been trying to reduce the amount of damage done. If this ritual furthers that aim, then I will do it."

"Maybe you are not so bad for an outlander, after all. You are different from the others I have encountered."

He paused, thinking.

Finally he spoke: "You should speak to the Shaman, Korst Wind-Eye. His hut is just west of the Great Hall. Tell him I sent you. He will give you more information. Do what he tells you to do."

"Thank you, chieftain."

He nodded and I departed.

I found the shaman in his hut. I introduced myself and then related to him my conversation with the chieftain.

"To restore the power of the Skaal, you must complete the Ritual of The Gifts."

I nodded. And?

"This will restore the Oneness, the balance. The Oneness is the balance and harmony of all things in the world given by the All-Maker. This delicate balance has been upset by the activities of the Imperials. To restore the Oneness will restore the power of the Skaal.

"The ritual of the Gifts involves six standing stones in various locations on the island. For each one, there is a corresponding quest or ritual."

He paused and walked over to a corner of the room and rummaged around. he eventually produced a book and returned. He handed me the book. It was titled "The Story of Aevar Stone-Singer" in Tamrielic. I opened it and was relieved to see that the text was also in Tamrielic: I could read this book. Much to my encouragement, the inside of the cover was a map of Solstheim entitled "Locations of the Stones." On it, each stone was marked. There were six stones: Beast, Earth, Sun, Tree, Water and Wind. I was very happy to see this: so many of my quests had started with only a terse verbal description of the location, with at least one step omitted and often with West and East confused.

"Rashelle. Study this book. You can stay here to read it if you would like. Come to me if you have any questions, then perform the rituals. The fact of you being an outlander should help the ritual. Outlanders caused this problem: it is good magic that an outlander is the one to fix it."

I nodded. I found a spot to sit and began to read.

The book detailed a previous occasion when the balance had been put off. The hunting had been bad and other things were going badly with the Skaal. The main character, though not a warrior, nor of great experience, had volunteered to go to each stone and perform the necessary ritual.

The book was entertaining and, more importantly, had a satisfying amount of detail as to how to go about the ritual for each Stone. Eventually, I closed the book, fairly confident that I now knew how to go about this task.

I bid leave of Korst and Recalled to Raven Rock.

I saw Falco and I approached him.

"Good afternoon Rashelle. How goes the werewolf hunt?"

"Haven't found them, or the captain, yet. I've been visiting the Skaal and I am doing something for them right now. Has anything happened here?"

"There have been no problems. Reinhardt has been a great help. His knowledge of this area has been very useful."

Looking past Falco's shoulder, I saw Reinhardt working on the roof of one of the buildings.

"I'm happy he is working out, Falco. I would hate to have recommended someone who turned out to be a problem."

"No, he's fine. Oh, and I've got Apronia doing odd tasks here and there. Nothing too physical or demanding."

I nodded and smiled. There but for the grace of Azura go I. What had prompted that weak city-bred woman to come to the frontier, anyway?

"What are you doing for the Skaal, if I might ask?"

"It may seem silly to you, but I have been given a quest to essentially purify the land, to magically undo some of the damage that our presence, and that of the Fort, has caused."

"Not silly at all," said Falco, "I don't argue with what works. We don't know everything about Nord magic and Nord gods."

I nodded.

"Rashelle, there is actually one small matter that I could use your help with. I've another decision to make. It is time to build either a trader's outpost or a smithy. I am not sure which will suit the colony better."

The smithy would allow weapons to be made and repaired here, without having to send for them. Then again, most people here on the frontier had already learned basic weapon repair.

A trader could carry a variety of goods, including armor repair tools. It seemed to me that the logical choice was a to build a trader's outpost.

"Falco, Let me think about this a few minutes and talk to some of the men. I'll get back to you shortly."

"Thank you, Rashelle."

I went into the mine and talked to men there. All I spoke to were in favor of the trader. Mining pick axes and tools would be available there. While in the mine, I was pleased to see how much the digging had progressed. The mine was now big enough that someone with a lesser sense of direction could get lost.

I returned to the surface and talked to everyone who was currently awake and outside. Some were in favor of the smithy. Beasts sometimes attacked Raven Rock so they wanted well maintained weapons available.

Apronia wanted a trader because she could then buy "nice things".

I refrained from rolling my eyes and again thanked Azura that I had turned out the way I had.

I then returned to Falco and said: "Trader."

He raised an eyebrow at my verbose and wordy response.

"Are you sure? Once Carnius is contacted to send the personnel over, we cannot change our minds."

"Yup."

"Very well then. Can you inform Carnius of this for me please?"

"I'm on it."

Carnius didn't seem to concerned about my decision. He gave me three hundred gold, however.

"Oh, and Rashelle?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"What's the deal with hiring that native?"

I scowled.

"What do you mean?"

"That Red-Spear chap. He's a savage. When corporate headquarters sent me his new-hire paperwork I almost exploded."

I glared.

"He has knowledge of the area," I said. "This benefits the project. Falco has already remarked upon his performance. He does his job well. What's the problem?"

"You bypassed me!" he shouted as he began pounding his desk. "I am Factor of Raven rock! I am in control! I give the orders around here!"

"Sera," I said as I adjusted the sheath of my claymore, "Answer me this: does Falco have the authority to hire new people?"

"Well yes, but ..."

"Then nothing against company policy has happened, has it?"

He glared. I'd made an enemy. I wasn't worried. I'd done the right thing and that was what was important.

"Go on then. Keep taking your orders from Falco. It just means more for me. Now get out!"

I left.

Falco raised an eyebrow when I related what had just occurred.

"As long as the profits come in, he should leave us alone. Still, we need to be wary."

I then departed from the colony: I had chosen to start with the Earth Stone, as the map in the book had indicated that it was not far from Raven Rock.

I strode northwest, through familiar territory. I had most likely walked past this Stone on more than one occasion without realizing it. This time I kept a lookout for any unusual or larger than normal standing stones.

In an area not covered with snow, atop a small hill, stood the stone. It was larger, yet narrower, than most of the standing stones scattered about the island. As anticipated, I had indeed walked past it previously. The large Nordic rune carved into the side identified it as the Earth stone.

I stood next to the stone and scratched my head. I'm here, now what?

I reached a hand out and touched the stone. Immediately, there was a sort of contact. There was a voice in my head: "Travel northeast to the Cave of the Hidden Music and learn the Song of the Earth."

This agreed with what I had read.

I waited a minute further, hand still on the side of the stone, but there was no more to the message.

I headed northeast.

Two attacking creatures later, I found a Nord barrow. The door to the tomb was spelled shut with spells that I could not break. I traced the runes on the door with my fingers, spelling out the name "Bloodskaal." This was not the place I was looking for.

I fought more creatures and crossed water once on my way. I eventually found what looked like another Nord Tomb. The runes on the door indicated that this was the Cave of the Hidden Music. I opened the door and stepped inside.

I found myself in what appeared to be a normal Nord tomb. Draugr threw themselves at me and I hacked my way through them. I soon found that the barrow was connected to a vast system of caves that took me some time to explore. There were many draugr and other undead and I dispatched them.

There was a decent selection of treasure, most of which I left there. I found some nice weapons and armor but I already had myself well-equipped in the armor department ... and few weapons approached the effectiveness or the beauty of Chrysamere.

A passage led to a deeper system of caves.

As I entered a widening of the passage, lit by some of those Nordic flame-topped stone cones, I began to hear sounds.

I progressed and the sounds became louder. They actually were becoming rather too loud for me but I gritted my teeth and pressed on. The sounds were a form of music, four tones repeated over and over again.

I actually became lost. My sense of direction is normally very good, even underground, but the strange sounding music disoriented me. I had trouble keeping focused.

Eventually, heeding the words of the stone and the book, I decided to follow the music, taking any turning where it seemed to be louder.

I winced as I entered a particularly large chamber. The music there was very loud. The stone of the cave itself shook with the sound: I could feel the vibration in the floor through my feet.

I saw the source of the music. There were three stalactites hanging from the ceiling. From them, in time with the music, shot bursts of steam.

Whatever it is I had to do, I wanted to do it fast: my head already hurt from the music. I watched and saw that the bursts of steam only shot from one stalactite at a time. I then realized that they corresponded to the notes being played. So while it was a four-note pattern, there were only three different pitches.

An impulse made me tap one of the stalagmites. I jumped back several feet when it immediately belched forth a stream of steam and a tone. Now it was clear what to do: I had to tap the lower ones to match the music from the upper ones.

I stood in front of the middle stalagmite, reaching out with my left and right hands to strike the corresponding left and right stalagmites, and using either hand for the center one.

Eventually I stumbled onto the right pattern of notes, playing the correct notes in time with those being played by the cavern. To my relief, the chamber became silent.

I rejoiced in the silence.

To my dismay, the music started up again. I groaned and then realized that it was now playing a second, different pattern. I cursed and then set myself to learning the new pattern. As I had with the first one, I matched the second pattern. The stalactites then returned to the first pattern, but played at a low volume. I imagined that the system of rock, steam and ancient magicka was somehow ... satisfied.

Through the twisty cavern complex I returned to the surface. I strode southwest and in a short time I had reached the Earth Stone. I could see that I had been successful in my endeavor, as the stone was now lit up by blue-green luminescent magic. It resembled bubbles rising from the ground, running up along the sides of the stone, and then disappearing. It was rather pretty.

I smiled and Recalled back to Raven Rock.

Wow, Rashelle should become a bard!! Or well, er, maybe not. But um... Entertaining read, even if I can't think of anything specific to say.

Hehe, I found the comment after the "Trader" answer quite amusing. It now appears that Rashelle is getting to the meat of things now that Carnius is openly showing his lust for power and the Aevar storyline has begun.

Keep up this entertaining piece of work!

Ahhh wonderful! I´ll have to admit that Serene (ingame) never managed to play those stalagmites! It might be because she was attacked by two of Almalexia´s Hands while trying!

Still I´m utterly fond of Rashie....and I hope she will fulfill her tasks...ah yes she will...of course she will....

How did Almy's Hands get all the way up & over in Solstheim? What plugins are you running?!


Thank you. She's got five stones to go. Then that pesky little matter of the werewolves, and some other stuff.

Ehh it was a bug, naturally Lexie´s damn hands aren´t in Solstheim! No way! You might imagine how stunned I was finding those bastardes in that confounded cave!

Anyway..Renie just didn´t make it....then my comp crashed (thunderstorm)

Took me quite some time to read up on this story but I must say that it is written quite well with plenty of content and excellent dialogue. The only thing I'd like to see is a little more description of the character's free time. It seems that right after the character gets done with each 'mission' there is no intermission between them...no free time for the character to do as it likes. Very well done though and I enjoy your style very much. Please continue.

As for the writing the character's free time ... it is a matter of pacing, of detail, of knowing what to omit (calls of nature) and what to keep (interesting dialog) , what to only tell and what to actually show. It is a precarious balance and I will try to do a better job of it.

Thank you for the comments.


--
Chapter 10. Swimmer



"Rashelle, we have another problem," said Falco.

I could not help but grin. We always had a problem.

"Go on."

"Well, the new ship has arrived and the men have already loaded it up with ebony. This is our first large shipment. It will put Raven Rock in the black. If this fails, Carnius will most likely start to make things difficult."

I nodded and asked, "but what is the problem? I see the ship there and I see nothing wrong with it, at least from a distance. Why can't they depart?"

Falco sighed.

"The problem is the captain of that ship, Baro Egnatius. He has suddenly decided that he wants an outrageous extra payment or his boat will just stay there."

"He is refusing to deliver the shipment?"

"Exactly. I don't know what to do and I hope you can somehow find a solution. As before ..."

"... don't kill anyone," I finished for him.

"Exactly."

"Falco, though my appearance may belie this, I don't like unnecessary killing. You do not need to keep telling me not to kill anyone."

"Unnecessary?"

"When someone has just slashed at you with their weapon, wouldn't you then agree that it is necessary to kill them?"

"Understood, Rashelle. I am sorry."

"It's all right. Let me go talk to this Baro now."

"Thank you, Rashelle."

I began to walk towards the shoreline. It felt strange to have to walk around buildings that had not been there a mere few days ago. At this rate of growth, I would soon not be able to see the water from the mine entrance.

I threaded my way between two houses and at last I arrived at the recently-constructed dock.

A gangplank led from the dock to the ship. Next to the gangplank stood an Imperial.

"Greetings, I am Rashelle. Are you Captain Baro Egnatius?"

"No no no! The accent is on the third syllable. Eg-na-TEEE-us. Yes, I am he."

"Very well then, sera: I understand that you are asking for an extra payment?"

"Yes indeed!" he said. "They don't pay me enough and for a cargo like this, I demand more money! Like I told your boss, my boat doesn't go anywhere until I see some serious gold."

"I see."

I could probably intimidate this Imperial as I had the Nord. I could maybe even rough him up a bit ... but I did not what to. I did not want to solve every problem by beating people up. I frowned.

"If you're not going to give me the money, you'd better go away, otherwise you might get hurt."

I gave him my Look and I adjusted my sheath so that it clanked against my cuirass.

"Ha! Your armor and sword does not scare me! I've seen better fighters than you. My buddy Elberoth is very formidable with his saber. After seeing him fight, you're nothing. That big sword wouldn't help you at all against him."

"Elberoth, the former ship captain?"

"Ha! Nothing 'former' about him. There's not a man alive that can beat that wily Bosmer. Now there's a Mer who knows swordplay."

"He's dead."

"You lie. Leave me now, Breton, before I get really angry."

I turned and walked away. Had I stayed any longer, I would have thrashed that fetcher. That might have gotten him to take the shipment and leave, but he would never come back and we'd have to look for another ship to haul future cargos to the mainland. That would cause delay, extra expenses and the unwanted attention of Carnius.

Through the falling snow, I returned to Falco.

"What news Rashelle?"

"Nothing yet. He's being a s'wit. When you buried the bodies from the shipwreck, what did you do with the Bosmer captain's saber?"

"Elberoth, right? We took all the weapons from the bodies because we need them here."

I nodded.

"I gave the saber to Apronia. I know she's not good with it but it is better than nothing. We are on the frontier: she needs have a weapon, any weapon. Though she objected, I insisted she carry it."

"Falco, I may need to take that saber."

He raised an eyebrow.

"It's a long story."

"Never mind, Rashelle. I am sure you have an excellent reason. Whatever you decide to do, I'll approve it."

"Thank you."

As it was noon, most of the men were having lunch. They were standing around a fire. Over the fire was a roasting frost boar. They'd skewered it on a long metal rod and were turning it. It smelled delicious and my stomach growled.

"Hey Rashelle, have some," said one of the men.

As I approached the fire, I could see that Apronia was eating with the men, nibbling daintily at a chunk of meat in her hands. I imagined that she'd prefer a table and plates ... but we didn't have those yet.

I drew my silver dagger and, reaching down between Apronia and one of the men, cut myself a piece. Apronia flinched: I guess she didn't like my frontier manners. I smiled: this was the frontier.

"Relax, just cutting myself a piece. You think I was going to knife you or something?"

She laughed nervously as she stared at the dagger, "Ah, no, of course not. How silly of me."

Her eyes followed my dagger as I wiped grease from it. Only after I had sheathed it did she return to eating. Strange.

I took a bite of the meat. It was delicious. From the taste, someone had poured some mazte over the boar as it was cooking.

I now noticed that Apronia was wearing a sheathed saber at her side.

"Apronia, can I take your saber?"

"Well, Falco was kind of insistent that I wear it."

"I've cleared it with him. I need it for a problem we're having."

"Why not use your big sword?"

"Well, it's not that kind of problem. I need that sword because it is recognizable as Captain Elberoth's."

"OK." she said as she pulled the sword out from the sheath.

"Thank you," I said as I took the offered sword. "If all goes well, I may be able to return it. If not, I will find you a replacement."

"Take your time, Rashelle. It's heavy and I don't like it."

I nodded, suppressing an urge to smirk, and and walked away.

Still eating, I made my way back to the dock.

Baro looked at my drawn sword and said "you again. Are you trying to scare me with that sword? Ha!"

I slowly raised the saber and rotated it so that he could get a good look at it.

"Hey, that's ... that's his blade. You've got Elberoth's saber!"

"I told you, he is dead."

He looked from the sword to my face. I grinned and took another bite of the meat.

"How did you ... but where... so it's true? He's dead? You don't mean to tell me that you ... I mean, you didn't ... you didn't kill him, did you?"

I chewed, swallowed and then said: "I'm not saying that I did, sera."

"Okay, listen. Maybe I made a bit of a mistake, all right? How about I just take the ship and deliver the ore, and we won't have any sort of problem at all. Just ... just don't hurt me. Look, I'm going now, see?"

"Good day to you, muthsera."

He ran up the gangplank and onto his ship, shouting orders to his crew. They would be departing shortly. I had scared him enough to leave, yet I had done so in such a way that he would return for the next shipment.

Feeling rather satisfied at the way in which I had resolved that situation, I strode back to the fire.

"Thank you, Apronia," I said as I handed her the saber, hilt first.

She smiled and sheathed it. "Glad I could help."

I approached Falco and informed him of the good news.

"That is excellent, Rashelle. That's one less problem I have to worry about. Now, if I could find out who is swiping the ebony I could be happy."

"Someone is stealing ebony? How long has this been going on?"

"I noticed it about a day or two ago. By tracking the work schedules against the times that ore goes missing, I am fairly sure that Uryn Maren is involved. I searched his house but there was no ebony there. He's either got another hiding place or ... I don't know."

I nodded.

"Perhaps you could sneak around in the mine and watch him: you could then catch him in the act."

I remembered Uryn. He was one of the first three that I had escorted to the colony. I nodded.

"Thank you, Rashelle."

I walked to the mine and entered. After the whiteness of the falling snow, I had to stop and wait for my eyes adjust to the dim torch-light.

Once I could see, I quietly walked down the mine passage. At each branch, I chose a direction randomly, since I did not know exactly where Uryn was.

In a short time, I caught sight of him. I slipped on my chameleon ring and began to creep stealthily. He turned and walked towards me so I silently pressed myself into the side of the tunnel.

Unaware of my presence, he walked past. I turned and silently followed. He turned into a chamber currently being used as a storage area. No one else was around. He lifted the lid of one of the crates and from it he removed two pieces of ebony.

I silently strode into the room, slipped off the ring and cleared my throat.

"Oh, err, hello Rashelle."

I remained silent.

"I'll bet you are wondering why I've got these pieces of, umm, ore in my hands."

My gaze transfixed him.

"OK, OK. I've been stealing it, but Carnius told me to! It's his orders."

"Put the ebony back in the crate."

He did so.

"We are going to the surface. After you."

We walked upwards through the mine and outside without incident. I brought him to Falco and explained the situation.

"For now, I'm confining you to your quarters." said Falco.

We walked to his house. Falco took his key and locked him in.

"I'm glad that you found the culprit, but that is now one less man working. The fact that Carnius is behind this just makes it worse."

I remained silent.

"Rashelle, with the testimony from this man, we have Carnius. Go and confront him with this information."

"With pleasure. By your leave ... ?"

He nodded. I cast Divine Intervention.

I entered the Imperial Cult building and ran up the stairs to the upper floor. Carnius was in his office.

"You again."

"Uryn has been stealing ore. He says you ordered him to do it."

That's me, subtle as an atronach.

"Ridiculous. Why would I steal from my own project? If that man has indeed been stealing, then he was just making up a poor excuse to divert blame from himself. Go away."

I left. It was clear that I was was wasting my time.

I went down to the Cult chapel and bought some ingredients from Joleen. I had meant to do this yesterday but events had distracted me. There was no pressing need to make the potions immediately so, after bidding him good day, I Recalled to Raven Rock and told Falco what had occurred.

"I'm not surprised," he replied. "I'll draft a letter to send to headquarters. It will be sent out on the next ship, which will be arriving here tomorrow. They will deal with the Carnius problem. For now, there is nothing more to be done."

"Falco, I will then resume my task for the Skaal."

"Yes, good idea. Thank you for all of your help today."

I nodded and strode away, towards the north. My next destination was the Water Stone. According to the map in the book, it was located not far northeast of Geilir the Mumbling's place.

The snow continued to fall, as it had been since I left Thirsk. The beauty of Solstheim almost made me forget about my problems. Thoughts of Carnius, Fryse Hags and werewolves slipped away as I walked.

Luck was with me in that I did not have to fight off any animals until after I had traveled for some time. This soothing interval was much appreciated.

Of course, it did not last. After hiking over a small hill I was set upon by two Spriggans. I fought through those, three times each.

Soon I stumbled onto a pack of wolves. From the lighter coloring, I recognized them as a particular breed of wolf that was known to carry contagious diseases. They were thus referred to as "plague wolves."

As disease no longer affected me, their bites and claws were the only thing I needed to concern myself with. With fire and sword I fought them.

I finished off the last wolf and looked up to see a lone Fryse Hag. She was about thirty paces away. My grip tightened on my sword and I felt my features harden. I recognized her red hair, bound in a pony tail, and her face. She was the one from the other day ... the one who I had actually talked with. Her eyes met mine. Instead of attacking, she disappeared into the snow. I rushed forward to pursue, but she was gone and I saw no tracks: perhaps she had Recalled.

I proceeded in a more cautious fashion: I was expecting to walk into another ambush. I crossed water twice without incident.

The terrain here was devoid of foliage: there was only ice and snow, a sweeping expanse of white and more white ... with hints of blue and gray here and there. Though desolate, it was beautiful.

A patrol of mounted rieklings distracted me from my esthetic appreciation. There were five of them and I had to take a potion before I had slain them all. It seemed that as I went further north, there were more of them. Later on I was to learn that this observation was correct: riekling territory is essentially the northwest portion of the island, a region entirely lacking in plant life and covered with snow and ice year-round.

The Water Stone rose from the west face of a mountain. Since it was a dark gray, it stood out from the whiteness of the rest of the landscape. Instead of a Nordic rune, this Stone had several horizontal wavy lines carved into it; an obvious symbol for water. I placed my hand on it, as I had with the Earth stone.

There was a sensation of contact and voice in my head said: "Travel west to a small island off the coast, and follow the Swimmer to seek the Water of Life."

Through the falling snow I strode west. I crossed an ice-covered river once and, after fighting through some rieklings, I reached the west coast. I didn't want to swim so I cast a water walking spell.

It was not long before I reached a little island. I knew this was the right place because a black horker, as described in the Shaman's book, was resting on the island. I approached. He raised one flipper and rolled to one side. I rubbed his belly and he made a sound indicating pleasure, as had the one on the lake. He was so cute!

After a minute or so of this, the horker rolled back and, with surprising speed, scooted into the water. He wanted me to follow him. From my pack, I extracted my books. I placed them on the ground. I did not want them to get wet. Sighing, I cast Water Walk and stepped onto the water.

The black horker swam straight north. Though under the water, he was close enough to the surface that he was still visible. I followed. A Breton in armor running through falling snow, on the water, following a horker: what a sight we must have made, had anyone been there to see it!

After a surprisingly long time, perhaps a quarter of an hour, he dived.

I waited. He came back up to the surface and gave me a look that I could only interpret as "well, what are you waiting for?"

I like cold but even I have my limits. I did not want to be in that near-freezing water. Also, I hate being in any water larger than a bath tub.

The horker dived again. I sighed, cast a water breathing spell and canceled my water walking spell. I sank like a stone.

The water grew darker with depth. I began to have trouble seeing the horker. I was uncomfortably cold. Something slashed at me: a druegh. I fought the beast and then looked around. I could not see the horker and I was freezing. I cast the water breathing spell again and continued my descent: maybe we would meet up on the bottom.

I reached the bottom shortly. I cast a Night Eye spell. It was good that I had learned the method of casting spells without speech: otherwise I would have been helpless in this deep water.

The horker hovered near a mound with a hole in it: an entrance to a cave. I hoped there was warmth in there: I was starting to lose sensation in my limbs and I felt so slow. I was shivering and so cold. Maybe I would just stand still for a moment and ...

I woke up, blinking. The horker bumped against me and my water breathing spell ran out. I shook my head and cast the spell again. If I dozed off again, I would die. I was so cold!

Into the hole I went. It twisted and it turned. it bent down, then to the left and then to the right. I lost all sense of direction. I could not even ascertain up or down. It was so dark and so cold. Maybe I could just rest for a moment.

No! I forced myself to press on. I saw light ahead. I swam for the light. I was rewarded with ... air. I was now standing in waste-deep water. I coughed a double lungful of water. It was a pleasure to simply breath air again.

A directionless blue-white glow revealed that I was in an ice cave. I had no idea the cause of the glow but I welcomed it.

The attacking skeleton I welcomed with a fireball. The spell did not seem to do as much damage as expected: this was a tougher than average skeleton. Later I learned that this was a type known as the skeleton berserker, an undead with the added strength and ferocity of a mortal berserker. Rapidly, the skeleton slashed at me. Its sword clanged against my cuirass several times before I could sluggishly swing Chrysamere. The skeleton blocked with its shield. Starting to warm up and also beginning to move faster, I brought my claymore down again: this time the shield shattered. I parried a sword-thrust and then chopped: the skeleton fell apart.

I emerged from the water onto the icy floor of the cave. The cave only extended ten paces or so: it was a dead end. I searched and found a spoiled water breathing potion and a water walking potion. I kept searching. In a crevice in an icy wall I found a small bottle. I could not identify it. I placed my thumb and fingers around the cork, intending to open it ... when I hesitated. Maybe this bottle was the "waters of life"? If so, I should not open it anywhere but by the Water Stone. I carefully stowed it in my pack.

I took a few more minutes to search the cave: I wanted to make sure that there was nothing else that I had overlooked ... because I was not coming back here. I cast a Detect Enchantment Spell and detected nothing.

Finally, I gulped a Restore Magicka potion, cast Water Breathing, and returned to that frigid water. Once again I swam though the twisty tunnel and lost all sense of direction.

Though in darkness, I could sense when I had reached the open water. I was too cold to endure a long upward swim so I cast a water walking spell. I shot upwards at a dizzying speed.

Very soon, I was standing on the waves again. Unfortunately, I did not feel so good. My shoulders hurt, as did my knees and elbows. As I coughed the remaining seawater out of my lungs, a burning pain raged though my chest. I was suddenly having trouble breathing. With shaking hands I quaffed a Restore Health potion.

I had been warned about this effect ages ago by a pearl diver. There was something about diving in deep water and then rising too fast that caused injury. No one knew why. I drank another potion and felt much better.

I ran south, casting my water walking spell as needed. I was wet from my swim, and this made me colder, but it was a cold that I could tolerate. It was nothing like the horrible cold I had experienced in the depths.

After recovering my books from the little island, I turned east.

The sky was darkening when I reached the Water Stone. From my pack I retrieved the bottle that I had recently obtained. I uncorked it and poured it on the stone. The bottle then vanished and a cascade of glowing blue bubbles rose up from the ground and ran up the sides of the Stone. This was exactly as it had been for the Earth Stone, save that those had been a blue-green hue.

I had completed the ritual for a second Stone. A cast of Recall and I was teleported back to the colony. I walked to the fire and, for once, enjoyed the sensation of being warm. It seemed odd to still have an outdoor fire now that there were several buildings, but I was glad that it was so.

"You actually look cold!" exclaimed Falco, who was also standing by the fire.

"Yes, I am. I've just been in a very cold area."

I related to him and the men the details as to my icy water adventure. They shivered.

"Has anything happened here?" I whispered to Falco.

"No problems from Carnius or anyone else," he quietly replied.

"Good." I had been a little concerned that some new problem would emerge while I was gone.

"You're just in time for dinner," said Reinhardt Red-Spear as he handed me a bowl filled with something and a spoon. The men must have obtained utensils from the shipwreck while I was away. It smelled delicious and I ceased talking as I shoveled the warm goodness into me as fast as I could. It was only as I was finishing it that I even noticed what it was.

Reinhardt had made a stew from bear meat but had mixed in enough vegetables and seasonings to make it interesting and tasty. We all agreed that the meal was excellent. It was a nice change from simply grilling whatever animal happened to attack the colony that day.

Apronia ate only a little and then scurried off to her house.

"Maybe she isn't feeling well?" I asked, mouth full from my second helping.

"Naw; she always goes to bed early." said one of the men

I swallowed and said; "Still, I wonder if I should check in on her."

He shrugged.

I left the fire and made my way to Apronia's house. On the day that she had arrived, Falco had moved the men out of one of the houses and given it to her. As the only other woman in the colony, she needed a house to herself, with a door that she could lock.

I knocked on the door and called out "Apronia. It's Rashelle, are you OK?"

"Err, I'm fine Rashelle," said her voice from inside the house. "I'm just a little tired, that's all."

"You are sure?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Good night, Rashelle."

I shrugged and bid her good night. I returned to the fire and served myself a third helping of the stew.

"I'm so glad we hired you, Reinhardt: this stew is delicious."

He beamed. "Thank you, lass."

Hmmm I'm suspicious on whether or not Apronia is truly all right or not, but I have a feeling that Rashelle will re-visit this strange going to bed early.

Anyways, another solid update, you certainly took Kiln's words to heart with adding some more daily going ons in this update. Plus the event with the sea captain was quite humourous so we get that famous mix of action and humour that you like to give us.

Hey, don't forget mystery! What with the Fryse Hag she didn't kill appearing before her only to suddenly vanish again. Very mysterious.

Something is up with Apronia, I'm sure of it.

And the water must have been REALLY cold to have that effect on our resident 'cold, what does that word mean?'

Well, cold water is ... errr ... cold. You lose heat faster in cold water than in cold air. This is why aquatic mammals (whales, etc.) have layers of blubber in their bodies: insulation. Rashelle is not super-human. Her cold affinity is actually something I have copied from my real life self ... with slight exaggeration. Still, she has limits: things can get too cold for her. She's not an avatar of some cold/ice/frost god ... she just likes it cooler than most people do.

Anyway ... next chapter ...

--

Chapter 11. All-Maker



I snapped awake. Falco was calling my name.

"Rashelle," he said, "We have a problem."

I looked up at him questioningly. Though many buildings had been erected, by choice I still slept outside.

He remained silent. There was an unusually grim expression on his face. I unrolled myself from my bear fur, bundled it up and stuffed it in my pack. I stood up and sheathed my sword.

"Follow me," he said.

He led me through the colony to one of the houses. I remembered that it was Uryn Maren's house. Falco unlocked the door and motioned for me to enter.

I entered. He followed.

Uryn was on the floor, by his bed. He wasn't moving.

I crouched down and took a closer look. He'd been stabbed in the chest, most likely with a short sword or a dagger. I estimated that it had been done at some point after midnight.

"Carnius?"

"Do draugr stink?"

"Damnit."

There was no way to prove that it was Carnius, but I knew. He had silenced this man to protect himself. What else would he do to further his goals ... and what were his goals, anyway?

I stood up.

"No," said Falco. "Don't do it, Rashelle."

"He's a murderer."

"We didn't see him do the deed. We could be wrong. You must not kill Carnius."

"Are you going to stop me?"

"I cannot, but I beg of you ... think about it. We didn't see the murder occur. It could have been anyone. A Nord could have sneaked in and killed him. It could have been a Fryse Hag. It could have been Apronia."

I laughed. I couldn't help it: the concept of Apronia trying to stab someone was absurd. The laughter helped. It broke my murderous impulse and allowed me to see that Falco was correct.

My gaze returned to the body and I stopped laughing.

"So now what?" I asked.

"I write a report about a mysterious death. I keep to the facts. And we see what happens next."

"Do the men know of this murder?"

"Not yet, but I will have to tell them. This sort of thing can't be kept a secret. I just hope it doesn't cause a panic."

"Agreed."

We left the house and Falco gathered the men who were currently awake around the fire for a quick meeting. He related what had occurred. There was a sullen silence. Everyone was thinking their own private paranoid thoughts. I'm sure everyone had their suspects.

"I have my own theories as to who the killer is," said Falco. "I cannot say them, but if I am correct, then none of you are in danger. Now, we need to resume work. Today we finish the building where the bar will be located."

The men grumbled.

"Apronia did it. She did it." Said one of the men.

I glared at him. He looked nervous but he pressed on nonetheless.

"She slips away early every night and hides in her house. I'll bet she's a witch! She's doing secret rituals there in her house. She killed Uryn!"

"Shut up," I said.

"She's a witch I tell you!"

Before he realized it, I leaped over the fire to him. I grabbed the front of his shirt, shook him, and hissed, "I'm a spell-sword: I know at least twelve different ways to kill you with just a spell. I'm the closest thing to a witch here. Got a problem with that?"

Sparks flew from my hands.

"N-n-no sera."

"Apronia is not a witch. Uryn was slain with a normal edged weapon, not by magic. Apronia is innocent ... and she is under my protection. If you hurt her, I will hurt you. I will hunt you down and you will be made to pay! Do you understand?"

"Y-Y-yes, sera."

I let go of him. He fell to the ground in a sitting position.

I turned to address the others. "That goes for all of you. Leave Apronia alone. She's not the murderer and she's not a witch."

"Maybe you are the murderer," said one of the men.

"If I were, you would all be dead already."

There was silence.

I saw Apronia. She must have just emerged of her house.

"Apronia, there's been a murder," said Falco. "Uryn Maren is dead."

"I heard you talking. I heard you say I did it. I didn't do it."

"I know," I said.

"Now," Falco said to all, "I know that until today, we've all been getting along fine. This murder is causing us to turn against each other. That's what Carnius wants. We cannot play his game."

"Carnius?" said one of the men.

Falco sighed. "Damn. That slipped out. I guess I'll have to tell you all the whole situation."

Falco then informed the men about Carnius, Carnius's history, and about the theft of the ore. The men were quiet.

"So one of use could be Carnius's agent?" said Apronia.

"Could be. Or perhaps his agent sneaked in here during the night, did the deed, and Recalled out. Let's not get paranoid. Remember that the murderer had a specific reason to slay Uryn, not any of you."

I knew that Falco had not wanted to tell the men about Carnius but I was glad that he did. It noticeably reduced the tension.

"Men, we need to keep going. The staff for the bar will be arriving on today's boat so let's get cracking on finishing that building ... after we have breakfast, OK?"

Mention of a bar generated some enthusiasm. I felt that I would now be able to leave Raven Rock without having to worry about Apronia's safety. This was a relief, as I wanted to finish the remaining four Stones for the Skaal.

Breakfast was a treat: kwama eggs that had been retrieved from the shipwreck. After we ate, I informed Falco of my plans.

"This is good, Rashelle: we need to to know why those werewolves attacked the fort."

"By your leave, I will teleport out."

He nodded. I cast Divine Intervention and was teleported to Fort Frostmoth.

I had chosen to go to the fort because two of the Stones were not far from there. Also, I wanted to give Gaea and Severia an update as to my activities regarding the werewolf attack investigation.

I found Severia in Carius's office.

"Rashelle! How are you?"

"I am well. I have made contact with the Skaal and I am still investigating. It is likely that they are not behind the werewolf attack. In the meantime, has the captain reappeared?"

"No. It looks like he is really gone for good. If the Skaal don't have him, I don't know what to do."

I explained to her the Ritual of the Stones.

"It all seems rather farfetched," she replied, "but if it gets you in the confidences of the Skaal, then it is good. Maybe, even if they don't have him, they can figure out who does."

I nodded.

She swore and then said; "Who am I kidding? I think he's dead. He's gone for good. We needed him. He was the best commanding officer I ever served under!"

"Severia. I don't know if he is alive or not, but I will keep trying with the Skaal. Maybe the captain will turn up."

"No, Rashelle, I must be realistic. He's missing in action, presumed dead."

I frowned.

"But Rashelle, I'd appreciate if you could continue your investigation. We at the fort need to know if those werewolves are going to attack again."

I nodded. Regardless, I was going to continue the task that the Skaal had requested of me. I had promised to do it ... and I was curious about the Skaal and their ways.

"Oh, and one other thing, Rashelle."

I looked questioningly at her.

"That Nord, the Red-Spear fellow; he's gone missing. I find it suspicious that he disappeared an hour before the werewolf attack. He's been gone ever since then."

I laughed. She glared at me.

"I'm sorry Severia, that was my doing. I got him a job over at the Raven Rock colony. He is there now."

Her expression softened into a smile.

"Oh, well then."

She giggled in a very un-legion manner that brought a smile to my face.

I smiled and said . "I must go now. I am going to finish what the Skaal asked me to do. And Severia?"

"Yes?"

"I have seen some strange things. I've been in some strange situations. I think the captain may still be alive. We do not know much about werewolves, or of the gods around here. It is too soon to form a conclusion."

"Do you really think so, Rashelle?"

"Two words: teleporting werewolves."

"Good point."

I bid her good day. I left the fort by the north archway and, heeding the map in The Story of Aevar Stone-Singer, I turned northwest.

No Hags attacked me on the way; just a spriggan, a pack of wolves, and a few bears.

I soon found my destination: another Stone. It topped a small hill, lightly covered with snow. I approached and inspected it. The carved symbol was obviously a representation of the sun. As expected, this was the Sun Stone.

After placing my hand upon it, a voice spoke in my head.

"Go west and free the Sun from the Halls of Penumbra."

Was this the voice of the Skaal's All-Maker? What was this All-Maker, anyway ... another god?

I walked down the hill and then headed west. I reached a river but before I could cross it, I was set upon by two berserkers and a bear. I fought them and then crossed.

In front of me was a depression in the snowy ground: a sort of channel going westward. It was framed by two standing stones. Was this a path to Penumbra?

Since I wanted to go west anyway, I decided to follow it.

This was not a good idea, since it limited my visibility to the sides. This allowed a bear to surprise me. One does not expect something that big to be able to move quietly, yet he had done so. Claws slashed into my arm.

I cast a fireball and darted back a few steps. The bear growled. I now had Chrysamere out and I swung. The bear howled as my claymore tore into him. He swiped at me with a large paw but I quickly dodged and hit him with a larger fireball.

The bear growled its pain and anger. I reached past his wavering paws and thrust. My sword found his heart and he expired.

As I pulled Chrysamere free from the body, I felt something small and hard bounce off of my armor. I turned to see a Nord man in a mix of fur and steel armor, bow in hand. He was shooting arrows at me.

I leaped out of the channel and ran towards him. I could now see that he was accompanied by four other Nord men: this was a party of reavers.

I cast a fireball. I dodged arrows as I ran towards the other men.

After I had slain two of the reavers, I noticed that the arrows had stopped: the fire had finished the archer. There were now two reavers remaining.

One of them slashed at me with his claymore. I parried. He had skill with this weapon: I felt a twinge of regret to have to slay someone with such ability, but he was trying to kill me. I chopped and his sword broke in two. He ran for one of the bodies, presumably to fetch another weapon. I left him to that and focused my attention on the other reaver. I parried his thrust and then beheaded him.

His compatriot had recovered an axe from one of the dead and was resuming the attack. Turning, I batted his axe aside and kicked, high. My adamantium boot connected and he was knocked back. He tried to get up and I kicked again. His head snapped back and he fell, quite dead. I'd broken his neck.

I looked around, expecting a third attack ... and saw it. A single riekling, mounted.

I cast a simple health damage spell. His boar staggered and fell, throwing him: my spell had killed the boar instead of the riekling. He ran towards me, swinging his odd-looking blade before he was close enough for the swing to do any good. I kicked. He flew through the air. I ran and, before he could rise, I dispatched him.

Again, I looked around me. I turned in place, expecting another attack. I listened. Aside from the whispering of the cool breeze through the trees and the distant sound of a raven, I heard nothing. I put a hand on the arm that had been wounded by the bear and cast a healing spell.

I resumed my westward travel, walking alongside the channel rather than in it. Very soon, the channel terminated at a snow mound with a door in it. There were no Nordic runes or other identifiers yet I knew that I had reached the Halls of Penumbra.

I entered, to be confronted by total darkness. Normally, no matter where I went, there always seemed to be some sort of light, be it torches, braziers, luminescent mushrooms, or even a faint illumination from the air itself. Here there was nothing. I touched a wall and felt the pleasing coolness of ice. This was an ice cave, yet the ice did not filter through any of the light from above. Perhaps there was a sort of darkness enchantment.

The Ring of Azura's night eye enchantment was not helping much so I cast a night eye spell. The combination of the spell and the enchantment allowed me to dimly see.

I strode forward and was soon attacked by a pair of draugr. I dispatched them.

I continued along. My explorations revealed this place to be an extensive complex of ice tunnels, filled with many draugr. It took some time to traverse it.

At last, I rounded a bend and saw ... light. I also saw a large spiky silhouette blocking the light. It had glowing red eyes and it was moving. I cast a fireball. the creature growled and began to run towards me. It loomed larger and larger. I cast a sustained stream of fire. The creature groaned. It was on fire, yet still it approached.

In the light of its flames I could see the creature better. It was the color of ice. It had several large spikes extending upwards from its back and also from the back of its head. There were tusks protruding from either side of its maw and very large claws on its hands: both were white. I raised my sword. I chopped just as its arm lashed out. It was quicker than expected: its arm struck and only my cuirass saved me from those wicked claws. I sailed through the air, smashed against the wall and fell to the floor.

I slammed down a potion and was on my feet before the creature was able to reach me. Warned now of its speed, I was able to get a slash in and dodge without mishap.

Darting to the side, I avoiding another swipe of its huge arm and my claymore again sliced through its flesh. The creature was bleeding now; ordinary red blood: it was not made of ice. I cast another fireball and, with a pained sort of howl, the beast fell and was still.

Later on I was to learn this this was an ice troll, and that they frequented the colder underground places in Solstheim. They were also known as grahl.

As Aevar had in the book, I removed an eyeball, which still glowed, from the dead creature. I walked towards the light. I was faced with a transparent wall of ice. I threw the eyeball at the wall. There was a brilliant flash of light and the wall shattered. A piece of ice struck my head and I lost consciousness.

I awoke to see that the cave was now lit. I took a healing potion and then rested for a short time. I sharpened my sword and performed some maintenance on my armor before finally setting forth for the surface.

My return to the Sun Stone was without incident. I was rewarded by the sight of many yellow balls of light rising along the sides. I had completed the ritual for a third Stone: I was halfway done.

The position of the sun in the clear blue sky indicated that it was now the early afternoon. I decided that I would tackle another Stone. I sat down, resting my back against the Sun Stone. From my pack I removed the book. I studied the map briefly and figured out that the Tree Stone was closest to my current location, roughly northwest.

After replacing the book in my pack, I stood up and set off.

I ran into another band of reavers as I crossed the river: did they congregate by rivers? A few spriggan attacks later, I saw a lone woman. At first I thought her a Fryse Hag, but I did not recall any of them wearing a Nordic ringmail cuirass before. Also the bare arms holding the Nordic battle axe were not standard uniform. The shoulder length blond hair was familiar.

She turned to face me.

"Svenja!"

"Rashelle! What brings you to this part of the woods?"

"I'm on a quest for the Skaal. Are you taking a break from running things at Thirst?"

"In a way, yes. Part of our income is gained from the sale of pelts from snow wolves and snow bears. I was taking a little time to hunt some. Each one of us does this from time to time and it does provide a nice break."

"It is good to see you, Svenja."

"I've missed you. I had hoped that you would stop by again yesterday."

"My work for the Skaal took me far to the west and north yesterday."

"Too bad."

"It was rough: I was swimming in freezing water and I actually was cold."

She raised an eyebrow. "It takes a lot to make you cold."

I smiled and said: "I'm off to restore the Tree Stone. Come with me?"

"I don't know. I shouldn't be gone too much longer. How long do you think it will take?"

"While I can't tell for sure, based on my experiences with the first three Stones, I expect to be done before sundown."

"OK Rashelle, lead on. Then you come back to Thirsk with me?"

"It's a deal."

We traveled North East, me with sword drawn and her with axe at the ready. I related to her what had happened with the first three stones. As she was familiar with the story in the book, I did not need to pause to explain everything.

Several packs of wolves, a grizzly bear and berserker later, we reached a snow covered hill. After crossing over the hill, we reached an area where the snow did not cover the grass completely. There we found the Stone.

"Rashelle, may I?" she said as she gestured towards it.

I nodded.

She placed her hands on the Stone. After moment she pulled her hands away and shook her head.

"Nothing."

"I'm sorry, Svenja."

"Perhaps since you are the one who has started to perform the rituals, only you can complete the rest of them."

I nodded and placed a hand on the Stone. In my head, the voice spoke: "The First Trees are gone. Travel east and find the one who has stolen the Seeds. Beware ... he who has the seeds, controls the trees. Plant the First anew."

"Svenga, we go east to find the one that has stolen the seeds. The book mentioned that he is a falmer. Do you know what a falmer is?"

"That's another term for riekling. If I recall the story correctly, a riekling will have the seeds and will be controlling some spriggans. That will be a tough fight."

"Here; take some healing potions, just in case."

"Thank you."

"Here's my plan. We try to kill the riekling first. He's controlling the spriggans. They will then scatter, or at least be more disorganized. This should make it easier for us."

"Understood."

I took a few steps and then stopped.

"Svenja, I have had a further idea."

Some time ago, as part of a contingency plan, I had made several rather strong chameleon potions. By taking two or three of them, one right after the other, their effects could be "stacked" to achieve complete invisibility for a minute or so. I rummaged though my pack and found them.

"Svenja, I can use these to become invisible. We will walk east until we spot the spriggans. I will then drink a couple of these. This will enable me to walk past the spriggans and kill the riekling."

"What if they see us before we see them?"

I frowned.

"Rashelle, how about this? I will walk ahead. You follow me at a distance so that they will see me and not see you. I will serve as a distraction. When the spriggans attack me, you go invisible and slay the riekling."

"Will you be OK?"

"I have my axe, and the potions you gave me. If you kill quickly, I can hold out long enough."

I nodded. We had a plan.

We strode east, with me a distance behind Svenja. After a while, Svenja issued a battle cry and ran forward. She must have spotted our quarry. I quickly quaffed three of the potions, cast a levitation spell, and floated up and forward. This last I had done so as not to make footprints.

She was in a clearing, fighting three spriggans. Three more remained near a riekling.

I flew past Svenja's fight. She was good with that axe but I did not know how long she could stand against three at once, so I wanted to conclude this quickly. Upon reaching the riekling, I swooped down and decapitated him.

The idea for focusing on the riekling paid off: now that he was dispatched, the spriggans fighting Svenja ceased their attacks and wandered away. The three by me also began to wander.

Svenja was taking a potion and did not appear to be in mortal peril: she did not need my assistance. I canceled the levitation spell and searched the riekling. I found a small peace of cloth that had been tied into a sort of bag or pouch. I opened it. Inside were seeds of some kind.

"Rashelle, it's creepy to see you invisible. All I see is a floating little pouch."

I laughed. "It will wear off shortly. Now let us get back."

We returned to the Stone without incident.

"But what," I wondered aloud, "do we do with these seeds?"

"We plant them," she said.

"But where?"

"There." She pointed to a spot of ground not far from the Stone. There was a small circle of rocks, each about the size of my fist. Had that been there before?

I crouched in the center of the circle. With my silver dagger I dug a small hole. I placed the seeds in there and then replaced the dirt over them.

"I wonder if we need to stand watch."

"No," I said. "Look at the Stone."

Glowing greenish white bubbles rose along the sides of the stone.

"That means the ritual is done. We can go."

The sun was low in the sky.

"I've taken too much of your time, Svenja. I am sorry."

"We did go on longer than I had expected. Do not feel bad, Rashelle. I would like to stay with you but I need to Recall back to Thirsk. If you start walking now, you'll be there in a few hours. Promise you'll meet me there later?

"I promise."

She smiled and said, "by your leave?"

I nodded. She cast and was gone.

I had agreed to go to Thirsk ... yet a thought had just occurred to me. I was not far from the Brodir grove. Since Ulfgar the Unending was 500 years old, he might have additional information on the Fryse Hags, information that had been lost to living Nords. I would go there now, before heading for the mead hall.

As I had reckoned, Brodir grove was very close to the Tree Stone. I did not see Ulfgar, so I entered his cave, making noise so as not to surprise him.

"Ah Rashelle, hello again. Have you news of Sovngarde?"

"I am sorry, not yet. I come to you with a question."

"Ask."

"What do you know about the Fryse Hags?"

He paused and let out a breath. "That's an odd request, lass."

I said nothing. I find the less I speak, the more other people speak, and I could think of no better way to prompt him along.

"The name translates into modern Tamrielic as 'freezer witch' or 'cold witch'."

This was new information: it had not been mentioned in any of my research.

He then told me the rest of what he knew. It was the same information that I had already researched, save for one other new detail.

"I remember two to three centuries ago, they were different. They did not kill wantonly like they do today."

I raised an eyebrow.

"They used to help people. They would sometimes assist travelers, saving them from the attacks of beasts and berserkers. They healed the wounded. They comforted the fallen, the dying."

"What happened?"

"I do not know. Something somewhere changed. Now they only kill. Rashelle, what is going on?"

"I do not know. Ever since I've arrived here in Solstheim, they've been attacking me. They've tried to kill me every damn day. Once they ambushed me and threw a net on me. They tried to freeze me with magic. They've stabbed me with those daggers. One threw herself on my sword, killing herself just so that the others could get a better swing at me."

I had to pause at that point to calm myself.

"Another time, I tried to talk to one and she said she wanted to slay me because I was not of their order. She said all life ends in death, so she didn't care if I killed her. That makes no sense. Ulfgar, I don't believe that a bunch of woman are going to run around killing everyone who is not one of them. That is madness!"

He remained silent.

"Yesterday," I continued, "I saw a hag. Her eyes met mine. It was the one I had spoken to. She did not attack. She ran off and disappeared. That was the strangest thing about this whole matter."

He sighed and then spoke: "Rashelle, in 500 years this world has changed and gone strange. I want no more part of it. Please ... help me get to Sovngarde."

He said this last in a tired and pleading tone. Had there been any doubt in my mind as to his real age, it would have just then been banished.

"I cannot promise," I said softly, "but if I ever find out anything, I will tell you."

"Fair enough, lass."

"I thank you for the information. Now I must be going."

"Take care, Rashelle."

My conversation with Ulfgar, while informative, had been depressing. My mood was much darker than it had been upon entering his dwelling. Would I be like Ulfgar when I reached his age? And what was it with these Hags, anyway?

It took longer than expected to travel to Thirsk. Along the way, I fought many creatures, including more of those damn Fryse Hags. The natural snowy beauty of Solstheim failed to cheer me.

It had been dark for some time when I finally reached sight of the mead hall. I entered. Through the happy crowd I wandered towards the back of the room. Svenja Snow-Song saw me. She smiled. My bleak mood was lifted. I went to her.

"I've missed you. I had hoped that you would stop by again yesterday."

"My work for the Skaal took me far to the west and north yesterday, but at least I saw you today. That was fun."

She gave me a very odd look and said: "What are you talking about?"

"Today, you and me, the Stones ... remember?"

"Rashelle, I still have no idea what you are talking about."

"You were out hunting this afternoon. I ran into you, we spoke. We traveled together."

"Rashelle, I've been here all day."

"Oh."

I then related to her what had happened, in detail.

"It is true that we each hunt from time to time," she said. "Thirsk does sell snow pelts, but that was not me."

"She was your twin. She wore what you are wearing now."

I pointed to the axe that rested against the back wall, "she even had that same axe."

"Rashelle ... There is only one explanation: that was the All-Maker, manifesting in disguise."

I looked questioningly at her.

"Remember that Thirsk was founded by members of the Skaal. We share many beliefs. Those that we do not share, we still understand. This has to be the hand of the All-Maker. The All-Maker approves of you, and is glad that you are performing the Ritual Of The Stones. Therefore, this is good news."

"Svenja, I suddenly need to go and sleep."

She laughed. "You know where my room is. The door is unlocked."

"Thank you, Svenja."

Oooo, that was a neat twist added there at the end. I liked that. Continue the great work!

Hmm, a personification of the All-Maker him/her/itself? Wow, wait till she tells the Skaal that. They'll get even more respect for her than just the respect from performing the ritual of the stones.