Chapter 6

Jonus had succeeded in his quest to get Quinn some water. Jeval took the lead when it came to finding her the choicest hors d'oeuvres. When she claimed to have lost an earring, it was Julien who found her adornment, or at least an adornment that met her approval. The three switched between watching each other and watching Quinn. She stood as lovely as a work of art, her smile impish and oh-so-beckoning.

"So, uh, do you want to go out sometime?" Jonus asked. "We can check out the, uh, Fighter's Guild. They have some cool stuff there."

"Quinn's not going to wanna go to the Fighter's Guild!" Julien interrupted. "Hey, Quinn, we can go hang out at the riverside tomorrow. I can buy you some scrib jelly, and we can throw stones in the Odai."

"Amateurs," scoffed Jeval. "My mom's making dinner tomorrow. Quinn, you want to join us? Traditional Bosmer cuisine's really good. No vegetables."

"You guys are all so nice," Quinn said.

They looked at each other in a moment of dawning panic and then back at her.

"Nice?" they gasped as one.

"And I really appreciate all the nice things you did. But I think we're spending too much time together. I mean I've spent almost an hour with you guys, and there are still other cute guys I'd like to meet."

Julien whirled on his feet to face Jonus. "This is your fault, idiot! Fighter's Guild? She probably thinks we're a bunch of meatheads."

"My fault? If you guys hadn't taken your sweet time getting her snacks and that earring, she'd totally have gone out with one of us!"

"Hey!" Jeval shouted, his reddened face now inches from Jonus's, "I got her that stupid earring right on time!"

"Guys, guys, you don't need to fight over me," Quinn cooed as the confrontation intensified.

*********

A bulbous paper lantern lit the second floor's narrow central hall, hanging from the ceiling like a glowing fruit. Spidery red and black Daedric script marked the paper, promising safety to residents and death to intruders.

Standing in the earthen hall, carrying a lit candlestick taken from the first floor, Daria felt like she was entering a cavern. The lantern's glow barely penetrated the hallway's gloom. Through an open window at the far end, she saw the massive watchtowers around High Town, torches burning brightly in the distance as the guards within kept their vigil over the darkened city. Noise from below still emanated through the adobe floor and its thick rugs, adorned with stylized insect images, but Daria already felt better in the second story's comparative quiet. Turning to face the door, she inserted the key in the lock. Darkness and the distortion of her lenses made it impossible to see exactly what she was doing, but she heard a click after a few moments of fumbling.

Briltasi's room was more modest than she'd expected. A small but comfortable bed stretched out beneath a window of foggy glass. A heavy dresser stood at the foot of the bed, while pink willow anthers wilted in a vase by the windowsill. Western-style tapestries of bounding deer and interlocking flowers hung over the rough walls. Next to the door squatted a stone triolith much like the one in Jane's apartment, showing Morrowind's Tribunal in all its stark and angular glory.

A book lay on the mattress, and Daria lowered the candle for a closer look. The Romance of Sir Aethelred of Wayrest, and His Love the Lady Dufont of Daggerfall, and the Lamentable War Between the Western Kings. A classic within the fine Breton genre of trashy chivalric romances. Apparently, Briltasi was the mushy type.

The walls suddenly shook, and Daria jumped away from the bed. Earthquake? Something scuffled outside, just loud enough to be heard over the buzzing conversation beneath her feet. Daria lifted the heavy candlestick, her tired eyes straining to see in the darkness.

Someone knocked on the glass.

*********

Karl the Unctuous held his breath. It was do or die.

The bug musk and his desperate last-ditch ingredients were lined up along the washtub. He put the kresh fibers in the bottle first, followed by the lichen, and then some chunks of ash yam. Deciding to mix, he picked up the bottle and shook it around. The smell changed slightly.

Then the bottle slipped from his hand and splashed into the tub. The placid surface erupted into a bright green foam as the diluted bug musk mixed with the water, which bubbled violently and spilled over the rim.

Hands in pockets, Karl made a quick exit as the hissing sound grew louder.

*********

The knock at the window came again. Cammona Tong? No, they wouldn't knock. They'd just kill.

"Uh, a little help?" came a voice from outside, unmistakably Dunmer but higher pitched than usual.

It didn't seem likely that an intruder would ask for help. So whoever was knocking probably thought he was supposed to be there. Daria walked to the window, the glass too opaque to see through. She opened the one movable panel and stuck her head outside. To her left was a young Dunmer man about her age, too skinny for his bulky bonemold armor. He'd placed a rickety and slightly too short ladder against the Talori manor's wall. He, too, leaned against the wall, his feet balanced on the ladder's top rung.

"Who the hell are you?" Daria demanded.

His face contorted in confusion.

"Uh, who the hell are you? Where's Briltasi, outlander?"

"I may be an outlander, but you're the one trying to sneak in like a second-story man. You answer first," Daria insisted.

"Oh, well, I'm Kavon!" he said, taking one hand off the wall to point to himself with his thumb. His face registered the mistake a moment later, his arms pinwheeling as he tried to keep his balance. Daria froze—no way could she stop him from falling. Luckily, he managed to crash back into the wall.

"Whew! Anyway, where's Briltasi?" he asked.

"Why should I tell you?"

"I answered your question, outlander!" he said. "So you gotta answer mine!"

"Like I said, you're the one who looks like a thief. Which means I ask the questions."

"I'm no thief! I'm a Hlaalu soldier. You know. Kavon Thanlen. I'm a pretty big deal around here."

Strange as the situation was, Daria did not feel threatened.

"A pretty big deal, huh? Which is why you're trying to sneak through a window on the second floor instead of joining the big party on the first."

"Aw, man! Look, Serjo Talori... well, I don't think he likes me because I'm not highborn. But Briltasi does like me, so, you know..."

Daria had somehow stumbled onto a lovers' rendezvous.

"I'll let her know you're here. Stay there on that ladder."

"Hurry up! It's hard to balance in this armor!"

Daria took the candle and walked down the stairs. The party seemed like it had gotten louder, harsh shouts mixing in with the regular chatter.

She reached the first floor right as a stinking mass of frothy green liquid spilled out from under a closed door and flowed into the feast hall. Shrieks erupted as a noxious odor, like soiled peppers, clogged every nostril.

Daria made a face at the smell. Sedrane bellowed in rage as the foamy liquid spread across the stone floor. Quinn's three suitors grappled with each other in the liquid while Quinn shrieked about her ruined shoes.

Seeing Jane near the refreshments, Daria rushed over.

"Why do I always miss the good stuff? What happened?" Daria asked.

"Beats me. Those three idiots got into a fight, and then suddenly... bubbly green slime everywhere! I kind of like the artistic boldness of it all." Jane made a face. "Though I could do without the stink."

"Oh no!" Briltasi wailed nearby. "The party's ruined."

"By the way, Kavon's at the window to your room," Daria said.

"What?! He has the worst timing!" she complained as she ran down the hall.

"Kavon?" Jane asked.

"Briltasi's secret friend," Daria said as she watched Sedrane spew invective at every outlander who'd ever stepped foot on Morrowind.

*********

"Is that normal for parties here?" Dad wondered as they walked down the darkened streets. He'd helped himself to a torch. The Commercial District was safe enough, but no point in taking chances.

"Dunmer celebrations can get pretty weird, but green slime that smells like bad cologne is weird even by our standards," Jane said.

"I just got these shoes, and now they stink of whatever that awful stuff was! Oh, I should've stayed home!" Quinn lamented.

Daria enjoyed the cool night air, a welcome relief after the noxious party.

"Jane, would you like to stay with us for the night?" Mom asked. "I'd rather not have you walking through Labor Town alone."

"That'd be great, Mrs. Morgendorffer."

"Splendid! You can join us for breakfast, too. And how did the party go for you, Daria? I trust it was productive?"

"I took a break from my busy schedule of alienating people to make a few new friends. Jolda, Maiko, and maybe Briltasi. And maybe Kavon."

Silence for a moment.

"Well, I'm proud of you," Mom said. "That's a good start."

"I was hoping this would be a good finish. But thanks."

Musical Closer - All Mixed Up, by 311

The End

Kavon could be some form of athlete. Ancient Greece practically deified their Olympic athletes. Actually, not practically, they did. Even wars were sort of put on hold, and even people from enemy nations were allowed safe passage to attend the games.

Bethesda simply never bothered going into what sports people play in any of their games. But you could make something up. Or for that matter, Kavon could be a gladiator. They do have those in Morrowind, though granted that is in Vivec City in the Arena district. But Kavon could be a gladiator in training.

And the Three Stooges are fighting over Quinn. How terrible. I am sure she is just completely broken up over it.

So it was UpKarl that caused the washing machine to boil over and cover the house with laundry detergent I mean, his experiment with creating Bug Musk that did that. Perfect!

Dunmer parties may be many things, but it seems boring is not one of them!

What a futile hoot as the Three Amigos stumble over themselves trying to woo Quinn.

Daria’s chance to rest bit is not in the cards. Looks like Kavon picked a bad night for a tryst.

Karl’s cologne mercifully gave Daria the chance to escape the party. Trashing Quinn’s shoes was just a bonus.

The only way to top this event would have been with a Sanguine ‘remove all clothing’ spell. . . oops, wrong game.

Episode 4: The South Wall Cornerclub

"Watch your pockets," Jane warned. "There are a lot of greedy hands here."

Daria's right hand closed around the ten-septim piece in her lower coat pocket as Jane ushered her through the doorway of the South Wall Cornerclub. The smoke hit her before anything else, a dozen times worse than the smoggy evening outside, all stuffed into a single adobe building and strong enough to make her eyes water to the point of blindness. With that came the acrid stink of alcohol and other, less pleasant smells.

"You know, the only reason I agreed to go to this place with you is because my mom would be furious if she found out," Daria said, taking off her glasses to clear her teary eyes. "And she'd better not find out."

"Hey, I'm about to show you the real Balmora. Not the picture-book fantasy of Talori Manor and Drenlyn Academy."

"And if I get knifed in a dark alley during this visit to the real Balmora?"

"Consider it another experience you can add to your resume. Aren't savants supposed to be worldly?"

"I try to become worldly by reading a lot," Daria said. "It's safer. More importantly, I don't have to work hard."

"Come on, let's go."

Jane waited long enough for Daria to put her glasses back on before taking her hand and leading her through a dark and surprisingly twisty adobe corridor. Specks of candlelight revealed limp and torn tapestries hanging on the walls, their images long since blotted out by too many carelessly held drinks. A red-and-white Khajiit woman leaned in the shadows of a corner, her golden eyes the brightest things in the hallway. Her tail twitched as Jane neared.

"Ah, Dunmer is here to see her brother play," she said, her words running together in a throaty purr.

"And I brought a friend this time," Jane said.

"Then Khajiit will be friendly to friend," the woman promised, gesturing down the bend in the hallway to a staircase leading down.

"What was that all about?" Daria asked as she carefully navigated the uneven steps, the smoke getting thicker the deeper she went.

"Oh, that was Sugar-Lips-Habasi. She's practically runs this joint, so I stay on her good side."

"I'm not sure it's a good idea to have a staircase right outside the drinking parlor," Daria said.

"Sure it is," Jane said. "The rest of us get to take bets on which of the drunks will stumble and fall!"

Daria's foot dropped a bit further than she expected; the jolt sharp but momentary. "I'm getting the feeling it's pretty easy to stumble down this while sober."

"Sobriety's not something you'll have to worry about tonight, my friend."

Glass lanterns burned blue and dreamlike in the parlor's smoky haze, the foul air quivering with dozens of voices: Dunmer rasps, Argonian hisses, and the more familiar enunciations of human tongues mingled together in a lively babble. The mix of peoples made her think of the Lucky Lockup, but the rough-spun clothes of the patrons and the air of familiarity told her that the South Wall was a place for locals, not for travelers.

She supposed she counted as a local of some sort.

Jane guided Daria through the densely packed little room, seating her at a wooden table that probably had dozens of splinters poking out of the surface. Daria blinked again, light-headed and wondering if she was going to pass out. Dunmer buildings tended to be poorly ventilated; the race's throats and lungs already hardened by living in Tamriel's most volcanic region. Sure made things tough for non-Dunmer, though.

"Is your brother here yet?" Daria asked, speaking louder to make herself heard.

"Don't see him," Jane said. "He'll show up sooner or later. Probably later."

"What kind of music is he going to play?"

Jane shrugged. "With a crowd like this, he's mostly just playing to make noise. Trust me, it suits him well."

The parlor was still uncomfortably dark, but Daria could at least make out the interior. Pretty standard set-up: tables and benches, a publican's bar, and big clay bottles of alcohol. Dried-up bittergreen vines hung from one corner, serving as both decor and a fire hazard.

Daria took the two pewter cups she'd brought from home and set them on the table. Jane had warned her that nothing in the South Wall was particularly clean, so she chose to bring her own drinking vessels. A Dunmer serving woman came by with a large jug, tilting it to pour some frothy mazte into the cups.

"I'll keep track of the tab," Jane offered.

As she spoke, a tall and thin Dunmer made space for himself in a corner framed by dehydrated plant life. His hands, oddly delicate, held a worn Imperial-style lute.

"I'm Trent Llayn," he said, his tone almost bored. "And this is a song I call 'Fire-Eyed Woman'."

He raised his hand to cover a cough, and then let it fall to the lute. In moments, his fingers stormed across the strings. Daria watched, fascinated by the ease at which he performed, the dark and smoky room probably nothing to someone like him who'd traveled the length and breadth of Morrowind's Vvardenfell District, turning its ash-choked foyadas and jagged coasts into music...

Daria blinked again. The smoke must be getting to her. She took a sip of her mazte, which she knew would probably only make it worse. Then she leaned forward to get a better look, taking in his tousled black hair and seen-the-world red eyes.

"You singed me at the park, when I asked you for a dance,
You burned me when I wept, didn't care about my stance.
You're a fire-eyed woman as sweet as the moon.
But darling, oh darling, you'll doom me soon."

He snarled the lyrics, with feeling ripped from his heart. The song was worlds away from the lugubrious bardic ballads and jaunty drinking songs she'd heard back in Charach. Trent didn't recite the tales of others; instead, he turned his pain into song. A song with somewhat questionable lyrical construction, she admitted. But she loved the directness. He said what he thought, just the way she wanted to.

No one in the crowd listened.

Daria watched transfixed until he finished his first song. A tap on her back got her attention, and she turned around.

"You sure seem pretty interested in music all of a sudden," Jane said. "I tried to talk to you three times during that song."

"Oh, sorry. I'm just intrigued by the kind of music he plays. Is this the normal style in Balmora?"

"Normal here means temple hymns or war songs celebrating the horrible things we Dunmer did to our neighbors a few centuries ago. Trent can play those, but he likes to follow his own muse, and South Wall's one of the only places that let him get away with it."

Daria's gaze had already turned back to Trent.

*********

Balmora roasted under the stars, hotter than a summer night on Stirk, even though it was only mid-spring. Red Mountain's caldera glowed sooty on the northern horizon as it puffed volcanic toxins into the air and into the nostrils of everyone downwind.

Daria leaned back against the balcony walls around Jane's apartment, dizzy and sweaty and content for the first time she could remember. The darkened city seemed to spin merrily around her, its torches and lit windows like a sparkling kaleidoscope. She, Jane, and Trent sat around a lantern, its brightness hemmed in by the smoky night. Jane was next to Daria, her eyes on the dark sky, and with her hands clasped behind her neck. Trent rested on the other side, long legs sprawled out on the floor while he fiddled with a three-stringed instrument made from an insect carapace.

"What is that?" Daria asked, still letting the world spin around her.

"It's an Ashlander harp," Trent said. "Really old school. Not everyone likes it, but I think it has a richer sound."

"Ashlanders," Daria repeated, letting her thoughts settle. "Nomadic Dunmer, uh, pastors, I mean pastoralists who herd bugs. Big bugs. Transhumance."

"Hey, yeah. You're pretty smart," Trent said.

"Uh, thanks," Daria said, wondering if her blush could be seen through her red-cheeked inebriation. "Have you spent a lot of time with the Ashlanders?" she asked, suddenly wanting to hear about Trent braving the toxic Ashlands and smoldering Molag Amur, needing only his poetry to keep darkness at bay.

"Heh, nah," Trent said. "I picked this up at a pawnshop in Ald'ruhn. Don't really know how to play it, but it's fun to mess with sometimes."

"Oh. Well, at least you're honest about it."

"I'm all about keeping it real."

Daria tried to get herself together. "Some philosophers say that it's better to be honest than to deal with the double-speakings of the rich and powerful. So in that way, I think you're very philosophical."

She blinked. That wasn't quite what she'd wanted to say.

Jane clucked. "Hmm, I think you need some water, Daria. Luckily, I still have some leftovers from the well this morning." She stood up and entered her apartment.

"How long will you be in Balmora?" Daria asked, turning back to Trent.

"A month. Maybe two. I like to keep it loose."

"You must have traveled a lot."

He shrugged. "I'm pretty local. Can't afford to go much farther than that."

"Is it dangerous to travel?"

"Can be. Got robbed a couple of times. Had to fight off a pack of nix-hounds once. I usually travel with a troupe these days. We're called Mystik Spiral, but we're thinking about changing the name."

"Where did you get that name?"

"I liked the spiral, 'cause it shows how everything comes back on itself, so you gotta go back to the source to get to what's real."

Daria tried to figure out what that meant. Somehow, even in her state, she was pretty sure it meant nothing.

Trent continued. "And mystic, because mysticism is the best kind of magic. Fireballs and lightning and stuff."

"Uh, actually," Daria corrected, "you're thinking of destruction. Mysticism is the use of magic to manipulate spiritual forces."

Trent nodded. "That's even cooler."

Jane came back with a jug of water.

"Now, can you actually hold this and drink it, or should I pour it down your throat?" Jane asked.

"I'm fine!" Daria exclaimed, reaching out to grab the jug and missing it by a mile.

"Uh huh. I'll just put it down on the ground until you're ready to pick it up."

"You're a jerk sometimes. But thanks," she mumbled. Waiting a bit, she took the jug by the handle and lifted it up, drinking deep. The bitter ashen water cooled her dried lips and seemed to restore some clarity to her mind.

Trent started playing the Ashlander harp, his fingers more careful than they'd been with the lute, plucking each string as they danced up and down the neck. The tone, deep and mournful, somehow sounded a million miles away. She felt the music more than she heard it; the sound a quivering in the smoky air.

"I like the sound," Daria said. "But it's a little hard to hear."

"It is? Seems normal to me. Janey?"

"I can hear it fine. Wait, human ears might not be able to pick up the sound of an Ashlander instrument."

Trent stopped and looked up, his expression cool. "Sorry. Should I get the lute instead?"

"No, it's fine," Daria said. "I still enjoy it."

"Let me tune this a bit more," Trent said, tightening the pegs at the top. He strummed the harp again, and the sound was a bit clearer. "Better?"

"Much. Uh, thanks."

Trent continued playing, his tune meandering between major and minor, slow and fast. No words that time. Probably for the best, Daria thought, as she lost herself in the music.

They stayed out a while longer as the drink left Daria's head and the lantern dimmed. She tensed up for a moment, wondering what stupid things she'd said to Jane or Trent back at South Wall. But seeing them there, insouciant and relaxed, she realized it didn't matter. As she sat there in the smoggy night, in the middle of a foreign world, listening to an instrument never intended for human ears, she realized Morrowind no longer seemed so bad.

Musical Closer - Lips Like Sugar, by Echo and the Bunnymen

The End

I love Daria's observation about reading being less work than experiencing things first hand!

Trent is singing. Oh boy, here comes some of that poetry...

Aaaaand there goes Daria's heart, all pitter patter for the musician. I did like how it is not just youthful hormones, but the raw passion and forthrightness of Trent's performance that draws her in. Like every good punk band, what Trent lacks in polish, he more than makes up for with emotion.

You really nailed Trent, from keeping it loose, to thinking of changing the name of the Spiral. He was always one of my favorite characters in the show.

Wow. So okay, I know it's just a paper lamp. But the way you go into describing it in the second part of this week's chapter... It's just that I've often looked at those colorful lamps, but not really put into words how incredible they are. Uh oh.

Daria's in a cavern-like hallway??? Yikes. Let me shush for a few...

Uh oh.



This made me laugh & intrigued at the same time. Hey, seems like Daria's headache is gone, or diminished. But she really does keep getting into all these oddly-adventurous moments. Other peoples' messes, and so on. And it's funny to me because Balmora (in fact, the entire base game) is so devoid of humor. Yet I keep giggling as I read this story here and there.

"I took a break in my busy schedule of alienating people to make a few new friends. "



311 is great. Amber's my favorite.

Oh gosh. She just met Sugar-Lips. This is intriguing. Uh oh... don't drink the matze.

Trent speaks exactly like a Gen-Xer. Ya know, sort of vague. Like, I just hang here, man. Don't need to go too far... got my money, got my friends... got my lute. I'm good like that.

Ow! My face!

"With a crowd like this he's mostly just playing to make noise.”
- - I remember a conversation with SubRosa (I think it was SubRosa) about heavy metal bands and her remarking, “If you can’t be good, be loud.” I think Jane’s right though; in a little drinking bar like this, the crowd is probably looking mostly for background noise.

’Dried up bittergreen vines hung from one corner, serving as both decor and a fire hazard.’

And it seems Daria be rather smitten by Jane’s musical brother. Nice to see her relaxing some, and even beginning to like Morrowind a little more.

Episode 5: The Guilded Age

Chapter 1

Someone had tied a big slate to the sinuous beige stem of the academy's emperor parasol. Bold white letters on the slate proclaimed the following:

All Honored Students of Drenlyn Academy:

I am pleased to announce that many of the most esteemed families and notable institutions within Balmora are opening their doors to Drenlyn students this month. You are being presented with a fantastic opportunity to apply the skills you have learned within these walls and to make valuable connections that will serve you (and the academy) well in the future.

I urge you all to take this chance to bring honor, and glory, to Drenlyn Academy, Great House Hlaalu, and the Empire that we all serve.

Application is voluntary, but failure to apply will certainly harm your reputation.

- Director Lli

Beneath that was a long list of families, guilds, and companies eager for fresh young minds to exploit. Standing next to Jane, Daria didn't do more than skim her options.

"If my reputation wasn't already as low as it could be, that last bit might actually sound like a threat," Daria said.

"Come on, Daria, this is a great chance for you to alienate new people."

"That still sounds like too much effort."

Jane stepped forward to get a better look at her options. "Not much here for me."

"You don't think you could wheedle a commission out of any of them?"

"Oh, I know I could. But look at this: the EEC wants a clerk, the Sloan family wants a scribe, and the Shulk Egg Mine wants an egg miner. Won't have much time to do commissions if I'm doing any of those jobs."

"I'm sure that transcribing endless lists of assets for the Sloan family would be a rich source of artistic inspiration," Daria said.

"I think the only thing rich in that equation is them. Anyway, I have a professional excuse to not participate, and I'm not even sure Director Lli knows I attend this place."

Considering that Jane rarely left Defoe's workshop, she might have a point.

Daria smiled. "As for me, I look forward to seeing just how low my reputation can go."

The two went their separate ways that afternoon; Jane headed off to a client, and Daria happy to go home. She dawdled at the river market for a bit and watched a burly Dunmer netchiman use a rope to pull his airborne beast above the crowd, its wiggling leathery tentacles colliding with the heads of annoyed passersby. She followed the netchiman from a healthy distance until one of the bull netch's tendrils hit the shoulder of a silk-robed Altmer and knocked him into the Odai's muddy waters. The resulting shouting match was a pretty good one by local standards.

Once home, Daria retreated up to the room she shared with Quinn (her sister mercifully still about town) and took a seat by the window with her copy of Jarth's The Argonian Account. As the setting sun's rays reddened Balmora's flat roofs and narrow alleys, she lost herself in the text's descriptions of Black Marsh's tangled jungles and the way the native Argonians got from place to place by traversing the spacious digestive tracts of miles-long worms.

She almost didn't notice when it got too dark, the black ink on the page becoming part and parcel of the shadows around it. She closed her eyes and massaged them through the lids. Time to get a candle.

"Daria!" Dad called from below. "Dinner's ready! I made some ash yams!"

Great. More of Dad's questionable cooking. And right when the story was getting interesting. Resigned, she put the book on her bed and walked down to dinner.

"One of my associates said ash yams make for great brain food," Dad said down below, as he gave each family member one of the spiky tubers. "Perfect to make my already brilliant daughters even smarter. I cooked it with some—"

Quinn scooted closer to the table, her chair's legs scraping against the flagstones. "So the academy's having this big volunteer thing where you can make connections and stuff. I thought it sounded pretty boring, but then I found out that this big cloth importer was looking for someone. I'm sure she'll appreciate my fashion advice."

"I'm proud of you, Quinn!" Mom said. "That shows a lot of initiative." Her eyes swiveled to Daria. "And what have you volunteered for?"

"I've volunteered my time for solitary self-cultivation," Daria said. Steam from the ash yam fogged her glasses, and she took them off, blinking in the dim candle-lit kitchen.

Mom made a disappointed sound halfway between a sigh and a groan. "Daria, you need to be more outgoing. How do you intend to be a savant if you have so few social connections? You can't get by in that field just by knowing a lot of trivia."

Without her glasses, her family became little more than vocal blurs sitting around the table. Steam still wafted in her eyes, thick with the yam's bittersweet aroma.

"I'll just find some noble who's as anti-social as I am. Not like there's a shortage of weird aristocratic recluses."

Daria didn't need to see her mother's face to immediately know she'd said the wrong thing. Mom's slow exhalation confirmed it.

"Daria, we aren't in Cyrodiil anymore. This is not a friendly place for people like us."

"I think it's friendly! I've made lots of friends here!" Quinn interjected.

"Doesn't anyone want to try my yams?" Dad asked.

"Oh?" Daria decided to push back. "If it's so unfriendly here, then why didn't we stay home? That way, we wouldn't have to work double-time just to be accepted."

"You weren't accepted back home, either! What exactly is your long-term plan, Daria? Sit around the house reading for the rest of your life? Do you know how much we have to pay the Hlaalu Council Company to live here? What do you intend to do when we die? Hope some rich Dunmer will marry you?"

Quinn laughed. "Good luck with that! I'll be the one who marries a handsome Dunmer aristocrat with a big country house out in the Ascadian Isles. Maybe if he has a nice brother or something, I'll introduce you."

"The yams are getting cold!" Dad fretted.

"Quiet, both of you!" Mom ordered. "Daria, you will find something to volunteer for tomorrow, and I expect you to make the most of it. That's final!"

Daria gulped. How the hell was she supposed to network in a place like this? It was worse than back home. She recalled the crunch of her old glasses breaking beneath Synda's foot, the pain of the clubs hitting her back...

Sitting in her room and reading might not be a good long-term solution, but it worked for the short term.

Daria slipped her glasses back on. Mom's face was red. Quinn watched, waiting for one or the other to make the first move. Dad stared at his yams, his brow knitted in worry.

"What were some of the volunteer options?" Mom asked, her voice level again.

"Daria should try the Mages Guild," Quinn said. "All those guys do is read books in dark rooms. She'll fit right in."

"I think that's an excellent idea, Quinn. And Daria, the intellectual atmosphere might make it easier for you to find like-minded friends."

"I barely know magic!" Daria protested. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"Volunteers aren't expected to know much."

Daria crossed her arms. "And I don't suppose the fact that you've represented the Mages Guild a few times has anything to do with this?"

Mom met her gaze. "Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it does. The Mages Guild is an Empire-wide institution that offers countless opportunities. And if, while volunteering there, you find out they need legal advice, then please tell me. That way I can get more work with them, which is something that would benefit everyone at this table. Daria, see what you can do there. You might even have some fun!" Her voice turned unnaturally sweet at the last few words.

"If no one else is going to try these yams I've been cooking since afternoon then I guess it's up to me to take the first bite!" Dad fumed.

He grabbed the yam off his plate and ripped off a big chunk with his teeth. He chewed, jaws working and neck strained, staring at the family as if daring anyone to interrupt.

Dad's eyes suddenly went wide. He spat it out onto the plate to the sound of Quinn's disgusted cry. Then he threw the rest of the yam with enough force to send it sailing across Mom's office and through the window into the street beyond.

Musical Closer - Singing in My Sleep, by Semisonic

"Come on, Daria, this is a great chance for you to alienate new people."
Well put, Jane!

A wonderfully done family dinner scene. Regarding the academy’s networking event, it rather sounds like an opportunity for nobles to get some free labor for a time. Quinn seems a natural at this networking/schmoozing stuff, though I wonder if her visions of being solicited for fashion advice will translate into the work of carrying and stacking bolts of cloth and such. Daria remains convinced that any such volunteer attempts on her own part will lead her to more problems. Mother really does seem to have the best interest of her daughters and family in mind with her manipulations and makes a rather convincing case for Daria to consider the Mages Guild. Meanwhile, Dad wisely knows how to stay out of arguments amongst womenfolk – probably from lots of practice. Finally, despite the superb build up, the poor ash yams end up as a ‘Fail’.

"Application is voluntary, and all of you have been pre-registered to attend so that I receive the 100% attendance bonus payment."

- Magistrate Lli

Fixed that for you...

Great, Internships! Lets get some free labor from college students. Capitalism, Capitalism never changes...

I love the little slice of Morrowind life, with the netch-wrangler and unintendedly aquatic Altmer.

Not like there's a shortage of weird aristocratic recluses
Now where do I apply for that job? It's right up there with Scoundrel in my dream careers.

Yep, that went the way a typical Morgendorferr dinner usually goes! Mom volunteers Daria for some chore, Quinn is self-absorbed, and Dad is completely oblivious to it all.

Wow, the Mages Guild! Quinn sometimes stumbles on a good idea, even if for all the wrong ideas. I have been wondering when Daria would start doing magic stuff. It seems right up her alley.

Chapter 2

"You never told me you were a practitioner of the arcane arts," Jane said. "What else have you been hiding, Morgendorffer?"

It was two days after mom's ultimatum. Noontime's bright sun revealed every worn-down speck of filth on Balmora's adobe homes. Darkness suited most cities better, and this one was no exception. Walking with Jane, Daria turned the corner to Guild Row, where most of the chartered guilds kept their offices.

"I'm barely a practitioner! Back in Charach, I had this soft-headed tutor named Vandries who somehow managed to explain the basics of alteration, mysticism, and restoration. I can cast a few spells, but magic's not something I know that well. And I can't legally practice without a guild member present."

"Those aren't bad skills to have."

"I asked Vandries to teach me destruction and got a long lecture about how we should all love one another. Some time in Balmora would probably change his opinion."

They passed a black-robed Temple preacher, his hoarse voice praising Almalexia's virtue to the uncaring crowd.

"This might not be so bad for you. Aren't mages all about collecting books and secluding themselves from the world?"

"I wish they were." Daria sighed. "The Mages Guild is just another example of a corrupt imperial monopoly that abuses its power for self-enrichment and to bully competitors."

"Speaking as someone who's lived here a while... I don't know if I mind them all that much."

Daria looked over at her friend, a little surprised to hear her defend the Empire. Jane held up her hands.

"I'm not saying the guild isn't corrupt," Jane continued, letting her hands fall, "but at least they keep Great House Telvanni's wizards in their weird little corner of Morrowind. I can put up with some corruption if it means not having to worry about a Telvanni lord deciding I'd be a good experimental subject."

Not sure how to process the information, Daria just grunted. She'd heard pretty awful things about Telvanni. But it wasn't as if Hlaalu was much better. Both profited from slave labor and double dealing.

"Corrupt or not, I don't have a choice."

"Isn't Jolda part of the guild? It can't be too bad if a goody-two-shoes like her works there."

"She's only in the guild as a guest scholar from the School of Julianos. The guild probably keeps Jolda at arm's length from anything corrupt. Here we are."

Daria stopped. The earthen buildings on both sides had gotten close enough together to almost squeeze out the sunlight. To her left hung a wooden sign emblazoned with the stylized eye of the Mages Guild.

"Well, good luck!"

"I'll need it," Daria said.

"Hey, if you learn some cool spells, maybe you can go with Trent next time he tours! Mystik Spiral's always looking to add some pizzazz to their shows!"

"I hate you."

Jane's laughter rang in Daria's ears as she walked through the arch and into the cold, shadowed space before the front door. The place didn't look promising. Why was it so hard to be left alone? Sure, her social skills weren't the best. But that didn't mean she had to throw herself headfirst into the guild. Except with mom nipping at her heels, she basically did have to.

The thought of a secretive wizard's conclave conjured images of mystery and magic, of floating flames and arcane chants. But the hallway beyond the door could've belonged to any Balmora office, with tapestries and rugs with abstract designs covering up the bland earthen surfaces. She followed a winding hallway down a steep ramp and into a vast basement too well-lit for the small number of candles within. An oak tree grew from a planter in the center, its leaves untouched by sunlight but somehow still green and vibrant.

So there was some magic, at least. But the rest looked mundane. Movable paper screens in wooden frames divided up the room into a dozen or so smaller workplaces, each one occupied by a desk and a bored-looking wizard. No unidentifiable noises or auras here, only the sounds of sighs and quill pens scratching on parchment.

Only the Empire could make magic so boring.

Director Lli had told Daria to look for one Associate Hetheria. She found Hetheria in a cramped office wedged between a monstrous desk and another of the ubiquitous partitions. An auburn-haired Imperial slightly older than Daria, she was busy writing a letter when Daria stepped up to her.

"Excuse me?"

Hetheria looked up, eyes uncomprehending. "You don't work here."

"I'm the volunteer from Drenlyn, Daria Morgendorffer. Director Lli said she talked—"

"Oh, you're the new meat." Hetheria put her quill back in the inkwell.

"And it looks like I've just been served."

Hetheria waved airily. "Don't sweat it. So why did you volunteer for the Mages Guild?"

She decided to be honest. Maybe that'd annoy them enough to let her go. "Networking opportunities. At my mother's insistence."

"That's why a lot of us are here." She motioned for Daria to come in closer, which she did. "This whole volunteer thing is basically a crock, anyway. We take Lli's volunteers to make her look useful to her bosses in Hlaalu. In return, the local Hlaalu bosses make sure to use this chapter's services when they want to look good for the Empire."

"And when they don't care about looking good?" Daria had to admit that she was starting to like this woman.

"Then they get one of their own wizards to do the dirty work.

"That does sound like Hlaalu."

"You're catching on fast. Anyway, Drenlyn Academy's part of the system. At least you guys are all literate."

"That strikes me as an overly optimistic assessment."

"Ha! Anyway, I don't actually have much for you to do. We have some papers that need to be rolled up into guild-standard scrolls."

Daria considered it. Boring, but she probably wouldn't have to talk to anyone. Then again, her mom might get on her case for not networking enough. "Do you have any tasks that might require the literacy for which Drenlyn attendees are so famed?"

Hetheria smirked. "You don't get to pick assignments, kid. The Balmora chapter doesn't have enough people because Steward Artorius puts most of our resources into personal projects. And right now, there are a lot of scrolls that need to be rolled."

She pointed to another workspace, filled almost to capacity with a massive desk buried under a small mountain range's worth of papers. Next to it was a narrow cot where an elderly Orc woman slept on top of the sheets and shook the bed with her snores.

"Try not to wake Sharn up. She can be cranky. Get to it, volunteer."

Resigned, Daria crept to the desk and pulled the chair out with as little noise as possible. One of the legs scraped against the stone floor, and Sharn made a rolling snort as loud as thunder, her massive body jerking with the effort. Daria sucked in her breath, but Sharn returned to her slightly-less-loud snoring a moment later.

Daria carefully sat down. A nearby candle on a brass holder burned but let off no smoke. Suspicious, she held her hand close to the flame. No heat: the candle was real, but the light was an illusion. She guessed it was cheaper than having to buy new candles each time an old one got used up.

She opened the drawer to her left, which was filled with a hopelessly tangled mess of twine. She looked at the paper at the top of the nearest stack, wondering if it contained the secrets of a powerful spell.

The title read: Requisition Form for Ink Produced by Chartered Imperial Ink-Mixers and Reagent Extractors in Cyrodiil and Sent by Great House Hlaalu Merchants Using Animal and Ship Transport to Morrowind Province for the Purposes of the Approved and Chartered Guild of Mages Whose Practice of the Arcane Abides by Law as Determined by the Emperor and Interpreted by the Imperial Curia, and by Ethical Custom as Determined by the Priesthood of the Nine Divines and the Cult of the Ancestor-Moth.

This was going to be a long volunteer gig.

Musical Closer - Where It's At, by Beck

"This might not be so bad for you. Aren't mages all about collecting books and secluding themselves from the world?"
Ahhh, the classic mage from literature.

"The Mages Guild is just another example of a corrupt imperial monopoly that abuses its power for self-enrichment and to bully competitors."
The mages from Capitalism!

Neat to hear that Jolda is a sort of half-time MG member. Probably one of a dozen other things her parents are forcing her to do in addition to her regular school work. *sigh*

Poor Daria really is dreading the mages guild. It is either not cool and flashy enough, or too bookish! Of all things. Methinks she is just looking for superficial things to confirm her original low opinion of the MG. Who knows, maybe she will actually like being a magic user, if she just gives it a chance? Oh no, now I am sounding like her mother!

Oh joy, looks like Daria was right all along. Scroll rolling duty, yay! Maybe Mr. Miagi will come along later with his wax on/wax off lessons...

I loved the guild's version of an electric light with the illusory candle.

Ironic that Vanus Galerion became frustrated with the rather exclusive arcane monopoly held by the Psijic Order and, during the Second Era, formed the Mages Guild primarily to make magic much more accessible to all. But like any organization, over time sometimes things don’t work out exactly as planned.

Too early to tell if Daria will warm up to the guild, but it ain’t lookin’ great so far. Rolling scrolls is about what I expected the guild to task temporary volunteers with. Oh well, at least her office mate is snoring, not talking.

Like SubRosa, I was intrigued but the guild’s use of flameless lighting – extremely prudent in a facility full of flammable books and scrolls. Buffy found the same concerns among those living in the highest branches of Valenwood’s graht oaks. There, the need for light at night without flame to risk a tree fire was addressed primarily by such inventive things as torchbug lamps and the cultivation of a variety of glowing lichens.

Okay, this is a comedy. I feel better for constant chuckles on my end, then.

I meant what I said though last week, which is, Morrowind is an awesome game, yet it's also mostly devoid of humor. I don't get the naked Nord thing, for instance, so I never laugh when I see one. It's something I did not even realize until starting to read this story. Oblivion has me constantly laughing, especially at their conversations and general glitches. Same for Fallout 3. All the '50s-era glorification, the things enemies say (especially the robots) I laugh a lot in that game, too. Heck, even Skyrim has its moments!

New Vegas? Mrm.... not a humorous game (for me). Anyway...

Floating a netch like a balloon sounds fun. Until it knocks somebody over, that is. Ha.



Like... how can somebody screw up ash yams?



Oh gosh, I'm in stitches, Clavier! Every line this week is lol-worthy.

Seriously though, I could totally see Daria performing some magic. She's got the focus for it, surely. What would her Birthsign be? Maybe not Atronach. She sleeps a lot and seems pretty laid-back. That'd be her best way of recharging.

Poor dad!

Chapter 3

Sunset was no more than a sullen red glow in the west by the time Daria emerged from the Mages Guild with a headache clamoring in her skull. She took off her glasses and massaged her eyes through her lids, fingers sore from rolling scroll after scroll.

And she'd get to do it again the day after tomorrow.

Quick steps took her to the Odai where riverfront merchants finished up the day's business, the cool air rumbling with guttural Dunmer voices. That sound mixed with her exhaustion and loneliness to conjure physical memories of pain, and then of Synda's gloating voice. Stupid to worry about that here. The streets were packed with onlookers and guards. The attack had happened in the morning, anyway. Still, for all their obnoxiousness, places like Drenlyn and, yes, the Mages Guild did offer a sense of cosmopolitan sanctuary. No one took notice of an Imperial there. Outside, the whole city seemed to draw away and stare at her with those unreadable red eyes.

She shook her head. Best just to get home.

Daria returned to find her mother lighting a wax candle before the small household shrine to Julianos. The flame's light reflected on the beads of white and green glass so that the entire mosaic glowed in the evening's soft darkness. Mom put her tinderbox back on the shelf next to the shrine and turned to Daria, her face as remote as a saint's in the candle's glow.

"Well, if it isn't my daughter, the volunteer! How was your first day?"

"Great. They put me in a dark basement where I rolled papers into scrolls to see whether my eyesight or fingers would give out first. It was my eyesight."

"Oh, it couldn't have been that bad."

Daria looked her mother right in the eyes. "That's all I did. No learning. No magic. Certainly, no networking. But hey, if you wanted a scroll-roller for a daughter, you got one."

Silence for a moment. "I know it's frustrating. But it's only your first day. I worked with the guild when I was your age, and—"

"You wanted me to do this to learn how to network, right? Because there doesn't seem to be much of that going on."

"Be patient. Balmora doesn't have that many options outside of Hlaalu, and I don't think you want to join them. The guild's one of your best options. You can't do it alone, Daria, even though you might like to. When's your next day?"

"Fredas. Most weeks that'd be time spent with Jane, but I guess it's more important for those scrolls to be rolled; my social development be damned."

"You'll still have time for Jane on Loredas," Mom said, annoyance creeping into her voice. "Anyhow, I made dinner tonight! Bread and tripe, with some Cyrodiilic olive oil, just like what we used to have on Stirk! Your father got the oil from one of his associates, and I can't wait to open it up. It'll be nice to have a condiment that isn't made from mashed-up bugs."

Daria had to admit it did sound pretty good.

*********

Daria returned to the guild at noon that Fredas. An unexpected and persistent drizzle had soaked her clothes on the way there, and she conceded a certain relief at the dry interior.

The paperwork pile on top of the desk had renewed itself, and she wearily set about rolling each sheaf into a scroll. Her finger bones ached as soon as she began. At least no one slept on the cot that day.

Time stood still in the untangling of twine and the crinkling of paper. A pyramid of scrolls grew on the floor next to Daria's chair. The contents of the papers offered no relief, memo following requisition following memo. She imagined the immensity of Tamriel's forests: their mighty timbers fallen and rendered into pulp, then dried out in the heat of the sun, refined and processed into usable sheets, and then sent to dozens of offices across the Empire just like this one so that an exhausted guild associate could write out a request for more paper. And so, the cycle continued.

After some time—how long, she had no idea—she heard Hetheria's low voice. Daria turned to see the associate talking to a Dunmer woman in dark velvet robes.

"Given my already considerable tasks," Hetheria said, "it's difficult for me to pursue my research—"

"That's not my problem. Your research is to be done on your own time. We aren't going to coddle you just because of your family."

"Certainly not, Warlock Athrys. Forgive my impetuousness."

Athrys made a dismissive gesture. "I expect the report on my desk by tomorrow morning."

Hetheria waited until the Dunmer woman turned away before she made a face, and then leaned against the backrest of her chair to stare at the ceiling. As if sensing Daria's observation, she turned to look.

"Hey, Volunteer... Daria, right?"

"I am called by that name."

"Yeah, so maybe you could help me with something?"

Daria pushed back from the desk and walked over to Hetheria, who was suddenly all smiles and light. "So you can write and stuff, right?"

"I possess basic literacy. And stuff."

"Warlock Athrys needs me to write a report, but I don't have time. I'm working with other associates to refine the recall spell, plus I'm running behind on my original research—and I did not settle for Balmora just to stay an associate for the rest of my life! Maybe you could write these reports?"

"Maybe. I know some of the theory behind magic, but I don't have much personal experience with it."

"You don't need to for this."

"What's the report about?"

Hetheria raised herself from her chair and glanced over the nearest partition. Satisfied, she sat back down. "It's about unlicensed use of magic in Balmora," she whispered. "So it's not really work for volunteers, but I figure you're really smart—"

"Not for volunteers, huh?" Daria crossed her arms. "I guess that means I can't do it for free." She didn't like flatterers, anyway.

Hetheria's face suddenly hardened. "All right. I have money."

"Judging by that Dunmer woman's remarks about your family, I'd gather you have quite a lot of it."

Her glower intensified. "I do."

"Great. Let's talk shop. How long does this report need to be?"

"Four or five pages. It's just a summary. The information you need is all here." Hetheria pointed to a slender packet at the edge of her desk. "You won't have to do any original research."

"What about handwriting? I haven't learned forgery. Yet."

"I'll copy what you write."

"Okay. Twenty septims," Daria said.

"Ten."

"Fifteen."

"Fine!" Hetheria's eyes narrowed. "But you have to make it look like something I'd write. You can use this old report as a sample."

Hetheria reached into a desk drawer and took out another stack of papers. With her free hand, she picked up the packet from before and handed both items to Daria. "Don't tell anyone about this."

"Your secret's safe with me."

"And you still have to roll those scrolls, by the way."

Daria frowned. "Wait, what?"

"Look, that's your job here! If you don't do that, people will wonder what you're doing. Stay late to finish that, but do the report now."

"I should've stuck to charging twenty," Daria muttered as she headed back to her desk.

At least this work promised to be a bit more interesting. She first looked at Hetheria's sample report, which began with a lengthy preamble giving the date, location, and the guild's official title. The contents dealt with the slow progress of an associate named Ajira. Daria noted elements of Hetheria's style—her preference for multiple redundant adjectives and her omission of the Imperial comma. The layout was simple, each section getting its own overly elaborate heading.

Satisfied, Daria put it aside and started looking at the notes for the not-yet-written report. Those offered something a bit more interesting. Rumors had been swirling about a Nord woman, one Johanna, offering cheap arcane services to residents in Labor Town. Whoever had assembled the notes seemed pretty sure that Johanna was not a member of the guild and that by providing services—worse, charging for them—she was in violation of standard practices.

"Surveillance recommended," it read.

Daria went about turning a single sheaf of notes into a needlessly verbose four-page report in Hetheria's style. It was not always easy to expand on the document's terse observations, but she did her best. Hetheria's own wordiness helped, though Daria winced at some of the extra adjectives she had to insert for authenticity's sake.

When finished, she walked to Hetheria's desk and showed her the report. The associate gave her a startled look.

"That was fast! This better be worth what I'm paying."

"Hand it over, and you'll find out."

Hetheria scowled. They made the exchange, and Hetheria scanned the report's contents.

"Huh, you did a pretty good job," Hetheria said.

"Like any good counterfeiter, I take pride in professionalism."

"Great. Go back to rolling scrolls."

It was night when Daria left the office. Spent rainclouds blotted out the stars and the moon, the air damp and heavy on her shoulders. Oily shadows submerged the narrow street outside the guild, the darkness barely kept at bay by the feeble glow of dirty lanterns.

The deal she'd made with Hetheria suddenly seemed very foolish. But it didn't sound like copying was such a big deal. Everyone knew that guilds swam in corruption. Daria had failed to network. If anything, she'd annoyed Hetheria. She'd gotten paid, though, and wasn't money the whole reason Mom wanted her to network? The only difference was that Daria knew how to get straight to the point.

She gripped her coin purse to keep it from jingling as she made her way back home.

Musical Closer - Pretend We're Dead, by L7

Isn’t Scroll-roller a rank in the Mages Guild?

’… mighty timbers fallen and rendered into pulp then dried out in the heat of the sun, refined and processed into usable sheets and then sent to dozens of offices across the Empire just like this one so that an exhausted guild associate could write out a request for more paper.’

Urg, even helping Hetheria by writing her report doesn’t count toward her scroll-rolling. I wonder if charging Hetheria undermined her chances of ‘networking’ with said rich mage? Hmm, is potential extortion a form of networking? Nah, probably not a wise path. On the other hand, to have not charged would have made her appear naïve and gullable. Oh well, perhaps she will be seen as a clever entrepreneur? And she has demonstrated that she knows literacy and stuff.

I see Daria is still living with the trauma of the attack. I hope she can move beyond it. But of course outside of videogames, being the victim of violence is not something you just forget about overnight and live happily ever after. Maybe she would feel better if she hired the Morag Thong to kill Sydna?

She imagined the immensity of Tamriel's forests, mighty timbers fallen and rendered into pulp then dried out in the heat of the sun, refined and processed into usable sheets and then sent to dozens of offices across the Empire just like this one so that an exhausted guild associate could write out a request for more paper. And so the cycle continued.
The War scrolls feeds itself!

I really hated Athrys. All of her quests are about murdering people or forcing them to join the guild.

Daria's extortion of Hetheria reminds me of all the times she did the same with her mother!

Well at least Daria got to exercise her writing skills, even if it was for rather dubious reasons (doing someone else's work for them, and outing other mages not in the guild).

Chapter 4

"Wait, weren't you complaining about guild corruption a few days ago?" Jane asked at the Lucky Lockup the next day.

Lunch was on Daria, of course, and she'd ordered the best the cornerclub had to offer: hot scrib pie and boiled ornada eggs, along with some of the rarely available coffee brewed from beans shipped in from Elsweyr's humid coasts.

"I only have a problem with corruption when I'm not benefiting from it," Daria said. The croon of a silt strider from the port briefly drowned out the noise of conversation.

"As a fellow beneficiary," Jane said, holding up a slice of pie, "I'm okay with that!"

Seeing her friend eat a good meal assuaged Daria's uncertainty a bit. She knew she wasn't the first person to help a guild associate cheat. But the nature of the report bothered her. Guild security wasn't something she wanted to interfere with. At the time, she'd just been relieved to have something interesting to do, and she was reasonably sure she'd done a good job.

"Jane, have you ever heard of someone named Johanna? Over in Labor Town?" Daria hadn't mentioned the notes on which she'd based her report.

Jane's eyes took on a searching look. "Nope, don't think so," she said around a mouthful of sweetened insect bits.

"Hm, okay. Just wondering."

"Labor Town's a big place. I only know my part of it."

They wiled away the rest of the drizzly Loredas afternoon in shops and plazas. Daria bought a big green beetle-shell hat of the same type she'd seen the locals wear to keep their heads dry during rainstorms. The new headgear proved its worth as the light sprinkles turned to rain during her walk home. The next day passed quietly but nervously in the Morgendorffer house, with Daria and Quinn both helping out at their mother's office.

What would happen if someone higher up in the guild found out? Daria wondered as she sorted papers. The Mages Guild was an Imperial institution bound by law and custom. Still, she'd heard the occasional rumor of people within the guild simply disappearing. It used to be easy to dismiss such thoughts, but now, with her recent deeds heavy on her mind, such tales no longer seemed far-fetched.

Morndas afternoon brought her back to the guild office, her mouth dry and her heart pounding as she passed through the door and walked down the ramp. She eased up a bit once she saw Hetheria looking relaxed and glamorous at her desk. Maybe this sort of thing happened all the time. Then again, she didn't have Hetheria's background. Coming from a noble family offered the kind of leeway that a Morgendorffer would never get.

"Well?" Daria said, once she reached Hetheria's desk.

"Oh, hey."

Daria stiffened, bracing herself for bad news.

"Athrys liked the report." She lowered her head. "And she doesn't suspect a thing," she whispered.

"Great." Daria didn't let herself relax, though. Something in Hetheria's eyes hinted at deeper calculations.

"And she has a job for you."

"Wait, for me? Doesn't Athrys think that you wrote the report?"

"She told me to let you do it since you've shown up for all your volunteer sessions."

"All two of them?" Either Athrys was the softest touch in the history of the guild, or Hetheria was up to something. Daria decided to play along for a bit longer.

"Well, yeah."

"And consistent with me being a volunteer, I suppose I can't get Athrys to pay me for this."

"You'll get some fresh air, at least. Fresh as it gets here, anyway," Hetheria said, making a face. "Anyway, your job is actually to go to Johanna's place with this."

Hetheria picked a tin ring up from her desk and held it out to Daria, who took it. Faint markings gleamed on the surface, but the distortion of her glasses made it impossible to see them in any detail.

"What is it?" Daria asked, squinting to try and glean some hint as to the ring's purpose.

"We're extending Johanna a formal invitation! You know, so she can practice her magic legally."

"I'll admit my eyesight is pretty bad, so maybe there's something I'm missing, but aren't invitations usually written on paper? How does a cheap ring communicate that?" Daria stared at her through her glasses. "There's something you're not telling me."

"Okay, so it's not an invitation." Hetheria's jaw clenched for a moment. "There's an enchantment on that ring that will tell us how much residual magic is in Johanna's house. Not conclusive, but helps us build a case. Just go to her home while wearing the ring, then twist it to the right to activate the enchantment. We'll get the information we need, and no one will be the wiser."

Daria shook her head. "You've got to be kidding me. Hetheria, I barely know magic. I can only cast five spells, none of them reliably. And the guild wants me to spy on a wizard? Forget it. Let me talk to Athrys."

Hetheria gasped and waved her hands, making shushing noises, her eyes wide and frantic.

"Don't talk to Athrys."

"Why?"

"Just don't."

"You're making me want to talk to her even more," Daria countered.

"No! It's—okay, I'll admit it. I didn't think this through. She wanted me to spy on Johanna. Look, I don't want to get involved with any of this crazy magic stuff. I just joined the guild to coast my way to a sinecure!"

Scowling, Daria stepped back. "No. I won't. Do your own dirty work."

Hetheria's lips turned up in a hard smile. "Look, Daria. I tried to be nice about this. But I've come too far to risk it all. If you don't do this, I'll tell Athrys that you wrote the report."

"And you'd get in trouble, too."

"Sure. Except my family owns a nice, big chunk of Cyrodiil and is a generous donor to the Mages Guild. Your family, well, doesn't and isn't. So at worst, I might get a lecture. You, on the other hand, will be expelled from the guild and probably charged with a crime. Yeah, that's right: the guild is government-chartered, so by counterfeiting that report, you lied to the Empire!"

Daria's mind raced. Was that true? Mom talked about low-level corruption going on in guilds all the time. Usually, it was stuff they handled in-house, if at all. Most guilds kept secrets they didn't want the authorities knowing about, so it was rare that they'd report problems to anyone outside. Yet all that suddenly seemed very abstract. And she couldn't ask Mom about this without revealing herself as a cheater.

She'd been played. And now this spoiled child of privilege held Daria's future in her hands. None of Daria's intellect or wit mattered compared to Hetheria's connections.

"Look, I am sorry," Hetheria said. "I didn't think Athrys would move so quickly. But it's not a big deal. All you have to do is stick your hand through a window and activate the ring. She'll never know. Johanna might not even be a wizard—wouldn't be the first time the guild's screwed up on something like that."

Daria couldn't think of a response. She stretched out her right hand and pressed it against the wall, leaning against it for support so that she didn't fall onto her knees.

"Come on, it's not that bad," Hetheria said, sounding a bit guilty. "I'm usually a nice person. It's just that things got kind of weird, and well, I have to look out for myself."

"How nice of you." Daria drew in her breath. She wasn't going to waste time being afraid. If she'd gotten stuck with this, so be it.

She pushed off from the wall and stood up straight, forcing her features back to sphinx-like placidity. "Since I'm doing personal work for you again, shouldn't you at least pay me for it?" That ought to keep her on the defensive, at least.

Hetheria looked disgusted. "I would've paid if you'd done what I asked when I asked. You made me threaten you, and I don't appreciate that. Now go do this. Athrys needs it done today. I'm going to hide out at a cornerclub so that Athrys thinks I'm out working. Meet me back here when you're done. The notes from yesterday have the directions to Johanna's place."

Musical Closer - Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle, by Cake

Daria’s discomfort over what she did to help Hetheria is not conscience as much as it seems to be fretting over the possibility of getting caught. She’s probably not cut out for cheating and perhaps better off sticking to ‘lawful good’.

Learned a new word from you: ‘sinecure’. Thanks!

Wow, it seems Daria’s concerns were valid. She finds herself outplayed and placed into a deeper hole. As she points out, she can’t even really ask her mom for advice here. And Hetheria is both selfish and ruthless enough to throw Daria under the silt strider at the drop of a bug shell hat.

Wow, talk about guild corruption. They want Daria to be their snitch on Johanna? All Guilds Are Bastards. Wow, and its deeper than that. Hetheria is even worse than Athrys.

I suppose that Daria could go to someone else's house - someone who doesn't use magic - and use the ring there. That would let both Johanna and her off the hook.

Too bad Daria did not learn that Enemies Explode spell from Delphine Jend...

Cake... I like Cake. Think I'll go get me some

How do you afford your rock and roll lifestyle?
You find…

a girl who gets up early
a girl who stays up late
a girl with uninterrupted prosperity
Who uses a machete to cut through red tape
With fingernails that shine like justice
And a voice that is dark like tinted glass
You find a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnng.... lonnng jacket

Chapter 5

Daria made her way across the St. Roris Bridge on the way to Labor Town, still not quite believing the situation in which she found herself. Not too late to run home and tell Mom everything that had happened. It might be a life-saving choice. Daria had no idea what Johanna was like. She might just be a regular citizen victimized by the guild operating off of bad information. Or maybe she really was a wizard who could fry Daria with a gout of arcane flame.

But that felt too much like admitting defeat. Bad enough that the guild was on her case. The last thing she needed was the disappointed look in Mom's eyes. Mom getting angry wasn't that big of a deal. She'd blow up, yell, and let off some steam, and then go back to normal in a bit. When she was actually hurt, she got quiet, her voice low, like she didn't want to make the effort to speak.

Maybe, if Daria did this one task, she could go on as a volunteer and forget this whole thing ever happened.

She stopped at the end of the bridge and leaned against the railing. Next to her, a guar pulled a wagon laden with bundles of saltrice. The Dunmer farmer on the wagon coaxed the beast along while a little girl, who might've been his daughter, sat amidst the produce cradling a many-legged scrib in her skinny arms.

Daria could throw the ring into the Odai. Say she lost it.

Except she doubted it'd be that easy. The guild would track it, she was sure. With that realization, she resumed her walk into Labor Town. The northern side was not much different from the southern one, still a warren of narrow streets running between adobe blocks stacked two or three stories high. The sounds of industry were constant: foremen calling orders, hammers striking anvils and butcher knives striking wood, the smoke of furnaces soiling the sour ambient scent of kwama meat.

Daria followed the directions to a meandering back alley at the edge of Labor Town, where the ground sloped up to the rocky hills north and east of Balmora. Patches of dirt showed through the crumbling flagstones. The only person there was an old, bald Imperial sitting on a crate at the end of the alley. Gray smoke coiled out from a wooden pipe in his hand.

If something bad did happen, there wouldn't be many people around to make a fuss.

The second house on the right was Johanna's, according to the directions. Weathered and run-down, the place looked like any other Labor Town home. Daria stepped up to the window, remembering Hetheria's suggestion of simply sticking her hand inside. Johanna had repurposed a hide tarp as a curtain, blocking Daria's view of the interior. She sniffed as she neared, noticing a damp and earthy smell around the house. Like fungus, she thought, which wasn't exactly unusual in Morrowind.

"Help!" wheezed a woman's voice, faint but forceful.

Daria froze. Heart pounding, she looked around. No one was there.

"Is this when the stress-induced hallucinations kick in?" Daria said out loud.

"Help!"

No doubt about it: the voice came from inside Johanna's house. Daria realized she could leave, wash her hands of the mess. If Johanna died, the guild would be fine with it. The woman was probably nothing more than another poor outlander who'd drifted to Morrowind, far from home and half-forgotten by her family. No one in Balmora would know or care.

Daria remembered Synda's mocking voice and the pain of clubs and fists. She remembered Hetheria's casual cruelty that day, borne by her social connections.

She ran to Johanna's front door and opened it. Carnage awaited her inside. An obese woman lay slumped against the wall, blood pumping from a wound on her neck and running down her body. More blood was spattered on the walls, on the rugs, and on the caps of the brown mushrooms growing in planters placed along the shelves.

Daria almost ran out again. The woman raised a shaking left hand, fingers outstretched.

"Bastard stuck me!" she gasped.

Daria did know a bit of restoration magic, but it had been years since she'd cast a spell. Mouth dry, she stepped over the bloody trail and hoped she still knew how to do this. A second body lay deeper in the house, a Dunmer. No movement from this one, nor would there ever be. A white sheen of ice covered his face, his right hand still gripping a bloody dagger.

Killing frost on a spring afternoon. Johanna was definitely a mage.

More importantly, she was dying.

"I might be able to heal you," Daria said, her voice sounding far away.

She knelt next to Johanna and focused, thinking of the light of Aetherius as Vandries had taught her all those years ago. Draw out the current of magic and place it within the formula, she thought. And the formula for healing is—

The spell fizzled out at her fingertips in a burst of white-blue light.

"Dammit," she uttered.

"Get that green bottle over there!" Johanna pointed to a nearby shelf packed with clay vessels. The woman tried again to move, only for more blood to seep out.

Grateful for the direction, Daria obeyed. She grabbed the bottle and ran back to Johanna's side. Uncorking it, she guided the vessel to Johanna's lips. The woman drank the potion and shuddered as her wounded skin stitched itself together. Some of the color returned to her craggy cheeks.

"Thanks, girl," Johanna said. "I appreciate that."

"Uh, yeah."

A good deed had been done. Maybe. But if anything, she was in deeper trouble than before.

"Now maybe you can tell me what you're doing here," Johanna said.

Johanna seemed remarkably self-possessed for a woman who'd been near death a few seconds ago. She looked like a mountain somehow given life, her eyes dark gemstones within a face that might've been carved from rock. Daria suspected that she wouldn't respond well to meekness.

"Saving your life, obviously," Daria said, trying to sound as blasé as possible while thinking of an escape route. She stood up. Easier to run to the door that way.

"You just go around saving people's lives?"

"I try to fit it into my busy schedule of slaying dragons and rescuing princesses from questionable marriages."

It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like Johanna smiled. "Nice act. But enough of that. Why are you here? Well-dressed little Imperial gal, folks rich enough to buy her glasses? Labor Town's no place for you."

"Yeah, well, you're the one who got stabbed, not me." It took a moment for Daria to realize how brazen she sounded.

Johanna chuckled. "You don't scare easy. The guild sent you, didn't they?"

Daria hesitated. Her eyes strayed to the corpse. That might be her in a few seconds. This would be a bad time to faint, she thought.

"Don't you fret," Johanna said. "That frozen fella over there wasn't from the guild. Not their style. He's just a criminal. I killed him because he tried to kill me."

"And came pretty close," Daria said.

Johanna scowled that time. "Don't push your luck, girl!"

Now, the fateful moment: admit the truth or try to lie? Daria's counterfeiting ability didn't extend to verbal falsehood. And somehow, she suspected Johanna would figure out the truth one way or another. Daria noted Johanna flexing the fingers of her left hand, as if prepping a spell. Escape might not be an option.

"First, I don't want to be here. I'm only here because a corrupt noble in the guild twisted my arm and made me go. Second, I have no loyalty to the guild at this point, so I'm perfectly happy to head back home and lie to them about what happened here."

"Yeah?"

"They gave me this ring to see how much residual magic you have in your home. I won't use it, but if I don't come back, they'll send someone else."

"Hmm. Let me see that."

Knowing she had little choice, Daria took off the ring and handed it to Johanna. The woman chanted something under her breath.

"Hand me the blue soul gem up there on the shelf, the one between the sadrith saplings," Johanna said.

Daria found it hiding amidst the sadrith fungus' growth. She gave it to Johanna, who chanted again and waved her hands. The gem crumbled into dust, and the ring glowed briefly.

"There you go," she said, handing it back to Daria. "Fixed this ring to give a false reading."

"Thanks. In that case, I guess I'll be going."

"Probably for the best. What's your name?"

She hesitated for a moment before saying, "Daria".

"Sorry to be so suspicious. I owe you one. I don't forget a debt."

"Sure. Anytime."

Daria kept her panic attack at bay until she'd reached a healthy distance. Then, she leaned against the side of an anonymous house, shaking and taking in deep gulps of air until her heartbeat slowly returned to normal. She stood there a while longer, covered in sweat and taking in the little sensory details that let her know she still lived.

Musical Closer - Paranoid Android, by Radiohead

What an unexpected turn of events!

I’m glad Daria made the choices she did during this episode, both in helping Johanna and being truthful. And in turn, Johanna’s cooperation might well allow Daria to complete her task while freeing Johanna from guild harassment. Finally, having someone who seems to be a powerful mage beholden to Daria can’t be a bad thing either.

If Dara threw the ring in the river, then the next Mages Guild applicant would be sent to retrieve it in return for a letter of recommendation to the Arcane University...

I was trying to follow Daria on The Map of Balmora, and I think I found an oopsie. In the text you have Johanna as JH, but I think she is on the map as J, in the upper right corner. And Jodie is listed in the text as just J, but I think her house is JA in the upper left corner.

Yikes! I was not expecting to find that Johanna had been assaulted!

"I try to fit it into my busy schedule of slaying dragons and rescuing princesses from questionable marriages."
Now there is that trademark Daria sarcasm.

I really liked what you did with Johanna, inserting her into the story with a good role, rather than just using her as the butt of fat people jokes *sigh* like in the TV show.

Phew, I've fallen way behind. Yikes, four new posts! I'll try to catch up (ha, Lena Wolf has heard me say that before). I'll try to read a couple new chapters, at least.

Chapter 2: Oh gosh... "I'm not saying the guild isn't corrupt," Jane continued, letting her hands fall, "but at least they keep Great House Telvanni's wizards restricted to their weird little corner of Morrowind. I can put up with some corruption if it means not having to worry about a Telvanni lord deciding I'd be a good experimental subject."

The laughter starts.

Oh cool. Daria's about to try joining the Mages. Let's see if she meets their requirements. Ha. Looks like she's in.

The "candle which gives off no heat" seems to be using the same magic as the gigantic fire pits in Skyrim's inns which do nothing if we step into them by accident. So now I can explain in RP terms why those pits don't burn our characters to a crisp.

Chapter 3: Sonic Youth, nice!!! Gotta get my headphones. Wow, never heard Sunday before. Pretty sure my brother was once in a band which opened for SN.

That's a good point. Outlanders do fit right into the Imperial guilds. Again, it's something I never really thought about, but it's very true.



Nice. And good that she got paid, even though it's not in the fashion wanted by her madre.

Chapter 6

"So everything went smoothly with Johanna? And the ring?"

Hetheria's breath reeked of booze, though she otherwise seemed sober.

"No trouble at all. I knocked on the door and pretended to be raising funds for the Imperial Cult."

Hetheria laughed. "Did she slam the door in your face? 'Cause that's what I'd have done!"

More than anything, she wanted to slap Hetheria. Daria had seen death before. She remembered the first time, a pale and bloated fisherman's corpse that had washed up on the beach when she was about three or four years old. Drowning, Dad had said. Deliberate death was new to her, however. The dead Dunmer's frozen face would be another memory she'd never totally escape.

"Not before I was able to take a reading." She handed the ring over to Hetheria.

Daria had gone to the local Tribunal temple before coming back. Jane had told her that the temple ran an enchantment service, mostly to bless items with healing magic. Being under the Tribunal protected the priests from guild interference. Daria had asked them to check the ring because she knew better than to trust Johanna. Who knew what kind of enchantment she'd actually put on the ring? For that matter, how good a job had Johanna done? Daria wanted to be sure that neither Hetheria nor Athrys would find out about the deception.

Fortunately, the Dunmer enchanter at the temple had said nothing was out of the ordinary. So far as he could tell, it was a ring designed to detect other enchanted items that had been used exactly once.

She hoped he knew what he was talking about.

"Thanks!" Hetheria said. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Maybe not hard, but I don't enjoy being used like that."

"Well, get used to it. That's how guilds operate."

That was all Daria needed. "Which is why I quit," she said, standing up.

She knew she'd made the right choice as soon as she spoke. Hetheria's startled expression was simply an extra reward.

*********

Daria didn't tell Mom the whole truth. Instead, she said that the guild had stuck her in a dark room to do busywork and that she'd quit before having any more of her time wasted.

Mom didn't get as angry as she would have if she'd learned the whole sordid story. But she definitely did get angry.

The ringing in Daria's ears had not yet subsided by dusk. She sat on the tiny balcony space outside of her room, watching the sun fade into the west. It was still mid-afternoon back home in Charach, where the sails of docked ships rippled in a cool ocean breeze.

Daria heard footsteps, followed by the door opening and closing. She sensed her mother's presence next to her.

"Lovely evening, isn't it," Mom said, her voice subdued.

"Perfect for platitudes." Daria didn't want to talk to her. Except she did. She wanted to explain what really happened.

Maybe that way, Mom would understand how hard it was to network in this place.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you earlier. I shouldn't have."

Daria shrugged and made a noncommittal sound, pretending to be very interested in the empty roof next door.

"You know, the Mages Guild might take you back if you wait a while."

"I'm not going back there," Daria said.

"Hm. I had a feeling you'd say that. And you don't have to go back. But where are you going to go?"

"I was thinking about this," Daria said. "Jane gets by as an artist. I could do something similar as a freelance scribe or writer."

"Jane barely gets by."

Daria turned to look at her mother, annoyed. "How can you say that?"

"I'm not criticizing her. She works very hard. Her life isn't an easy one, however."

"So? I'm not afraid of some hard work," Daria protested. And at least as a freelancer, she wouldn't have to deal with a bunch of annoying coworkers.

"Freelancers have to do busywork, too. Not to mention network with clients. Being part of a guild, on the other hand, creates opportunities and gives direction. Spend enough time there, and you can get a secure job that offers flexibility and respect. I suppose you could try joining Hlaalu. There are a few high-ranking outlanders there. But I don't imagine you'd enjoy their company."

"I wouldn't. All of the factions here just want you to play their endless games of social one-upmanship and networking. It's like Morrowind was made for Quinn."

"It is what it is, Daria. You need to find a way to survive and contribute. I can offer suggestions, but I can't decide for you. You'll need to think about how you want to make your way in the world."

Mom turned around and headed back into the house. Night had almost fallen, and the stars smoldered in the sun's final rays.

*********

Daria woke up before the rest of the family. No need to be in Drenlyn that day, which meant she'd help out at Mom's office.

But she had something else she needed to do first.

The damp and gray morning promised rain, so Daria donned her new bug-shell hat. She spent a few minutes balancing the oversized green shell, finally tying together the chin strap to keep it in place. Then she retraced her steps back to Labor Town. Thick and scattered raindrops splashed against the flagstones once she crossed the Odai and picked up in intensity the deeper in Labor Town she got. The morning crowds bent their heads under the lashing rain. Water splashed onto her dress and rain soaked her sleeves, but the hat kept her head dry. Thunder rumbled from beyond the rocky hills to the east.

Daria walked to Johanna's door but hesitated before knocking. It might be better to leave well enough alone. Who could say how Johanna might react to seeing her again?

The door opened, revealing a smiling Johanna, who looked much recovered after the other day's incident.

"Well! I didn't expect to see you here again! Come on in."

"Thanks."

Johanna's house didn't look all that remarkable when viewed through calm eyes. Just another modest Labor Town home with rough wooden furniture and threadbare rugs, all conveniently void of bloodstains. The corpse was long gone, and Daria decided not to ask how Johanna had disposed of it.

"You can take off that hat if you want," Johanna said. She walked over to an enormous wooden stool and settled down on it.

Daria marveled at the immensity of Johanna's arms, which looked heavy enough to break through the wall if she applied any real force.

"That's okay," Daria said. "I'm not going to spend much time here. I came here to let you know that the plan worked. The guild doesn't think you use magic."

"That's awfully considerate of you."

"Don't get too excited," Daria warned. "They could still be investigating you. But I quit the guild, so it's not my problem anymore."

"Doesn't surprise me. Bright young thing like you doesn't need what they have to offer, no ma'am."

"I'm not sure it was that bright of me to quit," Daria admitted, "but it's already done." She took a deep breath. "I've been trying to figure out why you're selling magical services from outside the guild."

Johanna chuckled. "Well, you worked there. You think I want to deal with that nonsense?"

"I'm sure that nonsense can't be worse than dodging guild surveillance. Maybe you're too cheap to pay the dues, but given how you killed your assailant with magic the other day, I'd say you're skilled enough to earn decent money. Which leaves one other option."

Her rocky face broke into a self-satisfied smile. "You are a clever one. Say it."

"You're with Great House Telvanni."

"And proud of it! Of course, I'm sure you ain't dumb enough to tell anyone else that."

"I know enough to keep my head on my shoulders," Daria said. "I've heard the Telvanni are pretty xenophobic toward non-Dunmer. Why would they accept a human like you?"

Or like me, she thought.

"Xenophobic? Oh, come on, girl, you should know better than to listen to what the Hlaalu say! Sure, there were some Telvanni Dunmer who called me outlander and n'wah when I started out." She grinned. "Not too many of them are still breathing!"

Johanna raised her head and laughed, the sound booming in the enclosed space. Her body still shook with mirth as she quieted down, her face red.

"The Telvanni respect talent and power. It's not like here, where you have to make nice with every spoiled noble's son," she said.

"That does sound pretty tempting," Daria said.

"Are you interested?" Johanna's expression turned serious. "It's a lifetime commitment. Your magic skills aren't up to snuff, so you'll have to do a lot of work on those—a lot more than you'd have to do at the guild. But I think you'll learn quick. Maybe I can teach you a few tricks. You won't have to deal with Imperial red tape, neither!"

"Except Telvanni lands are still under Imperial jurisdiction," Daria said.

"Don't be naïve, girl. Sure, the wizard lords bowed their heads to the emperor, but he holds no real power in our lands. We're too far away. And the Empire's grip gets weaker by the day."

It might be true. It might not.

Johanna kept going. "When you're Telvanni, you're free. You can do whatever you want as long as you have the smarts and strength to back it up. You have the smarts—I can tell—and you'll get stronger. Survive long enough, and you can grow your own sadrith tower and tell the world to go to hell. You'll be free from nobles, free from guilds. Free from gods!"

The hair on the back of Daria's neck stood up. Johanna hadn't been joking about that last bit. Scary, but it sounded like Daria. No social niceties, just the pursuit of her passions. She imagined her own domain in the fungal wastelands of the east, one forged through her intelligence and unmarred by nepotism or networking.

Then she thought back to her conversation with Jane the previous week, and the disgust her friend had shown in regards to the Telvanni lords.

"Free to use annoying people as test subjects for arcane experiments?" Daria asked.

"If that's what you're into, sure." Johanna sounded like a salesman.

And what if Daria was that annoying person to someone else? What if Hetheria had simply had the power to obliterate her for disobedience?

"Well, thanks," Daria said. "But I'm not sure I'm at the point in my life where I'm comfortable making that decision."

Johanna held up a hand. "Joining a great house is a big choice, and you don't want to make it before you're ready. Now, I can't stay in Balmora much longer, but I do owe you a favor, and I take that sort of thing seriously. So if you ever find yourself in Sadrith Mora, ask for me. I got a place where you can stay and can help you meet some interesting people. The offer to join Great House Telvanni is open as long as I'm around."

"Thank you. Truly. But I should get back to my parents."

"All right then. Thanks for paying me a visit. Take care now, you hear?"

Daria emerged into the driving rain, the drops drumming on her hat. She'd never join the Telvanni, she knew. But it'd be unwise of her to burn any more bridges.

Hungry for breakfast, she set off for home.

Musical Closer - Obstacle 1, by Interpol

The End

Hetheria is just so very dislikeable. Though granted, she does not know about the dead burglar.

Wow, Daria was face to face with death in all its ugliness at a very early age. I had a lot of grand parents and grant aunts and uncles die when I was a child. But seeing them dead in their coffins was different. They were all serene and made up to look nice, like they were sleeping. Even though I knew better. A dead body that just washed up on the beach is a lot different. Poor Daria.

Daria is going back to Johanna? Is she going to join House Telvanni? Well, they are a bunch of lunatics and misanthropes. She might fit in there. If she does not mind the slavery, and murder, and other things...

I think she made the right choice in not joining Telvanni.

Poor Daria, encountering a corpse at such a young age.

Prudent to check out that ring with the temple’s enchanter before surrendering it and announcing her findings.

I wanted to cheer for Daria when she announced, “I quit”. I wonder if this was just a corrupt guild branch or if the entire guild is similarly tarnished in Daria’s world.

I kind of wish Daria had told her mother the truth during her second, more subdued chat with her. If would be nice if her mother new the whole story and why Daria quit.

I chuckle every time I try to envision Daria in her bug-shell green hat.

Johanna makes an interesting case for the Telvanni but I’m pleased Daria told herself that joining them was not going to happen.

Episode 6: The Artist's I

Moonmoth Legion Fort didn't belong.

It proclaimed this fact in the artificiality of its construction. No adobe or insect shells, just massive blocks of stone piled one on top of the other. This being the Empire, one could be sure someone in charge—probably multiple someones—possessed reams of paperwork documenting every stone, tracing each from its origin within a particular pit within a particular quarry, its shaping beneath the chisels and calloused hands of foreign masons, its long journey by guar- or ox-pulled wagon, its time spent in storage, the name of the foreman who oversaw its placement within a particular wall or tower, and how well it held up to the rain and wind and ash over the intervening years. The fort implied a world set in clear and explicit rules, displayed for all to see so long as all were willing to take the time.

Moonmoth Legion Fort didn't belong. But that was okay. Jane didn't belong either.

Standing between the squat entry towers, strange in their angular rigidity, Jane looked back over her shoulder. No sign of Balmora, its towers and plazas behind the barren hills. Moonmoth wasn't that far from the city physically, but it was a whole world away in every other sense. Atop the towers fluttered the Empire's banner, and on that its sigil: a sinuous red dragon in flight but bound and restricted within the straight lines of a larger red lozenge.

"What's your business here, citizen?" The guard inquired, the sun glinting off the rearing horses emblazoned on his cuirass. He had the mindless look of someone bored half to death but too professional to show it.

"Hi, I'm Jane Llayn. Sir Larrius Varro hired me to paint a portrait, so here I am."

"Ah, I remember seeing your name on the schedule." He took a wooden slat and a charcoal pen from his belt, using the latter to mark the former. "In you go. Sir Varro should be in the keep."

"Thanks." Jane walked beneath the jagged teeth of the portcullis set within the arched gate.

The legion was the Empire's heavy hand. Jane found legionnaires to be less objectionable than the Hlaalu guards in the city, who tended to be idiot youngsters wielding weapons and far too eager to use them. Legionnaires were about the same age, but with the stupidity trained out of them. Most of the time.

Plus, if worse came to worst, it'd be the legion that protected outlanders like her. They'd protect her the same way they protected an entire continent and all of its teeming kingdoms, tribes, cults, and guilds: by sword-point and on their terms, no questions asked. But it was better than nothing.

She found Varro at his desk within the keep. He looked how she'd imagined a life-time Imperial soldier would look: his uniform perfectly arranged, his frame lean and tough, not an ounce of excess flab daring to distort his rugged features. They exchanged pleasantries, his responses polite and economic. She confirmed his expectations: a head-and-shoulders portrait at three-quarters view. Legion commissions usually went full-length and full-face, which meant Varro probably intended this portrait for personal use.

He sat for her in the top floor of the keep, in an unadorned stone room where sunlight shone through the narrow window slits. Jane set up her easel and canvas as she studied her client. Most of her clients were outlanders like her. That meant they wanted to be painted in Imperial style. Trick was, that meant different things to different people.

Varro was an Imperial from the Colovian west, trained in the harsh ways of war and discipline. A client like him would be offended if she elided a wart or a scar. The Colovian Imperials took pride in presenting themselves as the eye saw them. Daria had probably fit in there better than she'd been willing to admit. And Quinn already looked perfect without embellishment.

When painting Varro, Jane was no longer Jane. She imagined herself as nothing more than a disembodied pair of eyes and hands, reproducing exactly what she saw in the physical realm. Varro existed in three dimensions, so she incorporated the vanishing point and the interplay of light and shadow to show the furrows of his brow, the gauntness of his cheeks, and the straight line of his mouth. She counted each detail, just like the Empire counted stones for its forts.

She finished as the light waned, adding her signature in the lower right-hand corner. Jane returned, her body providing connecting tissue for the eyes and hands that the Empire, through Varro, had hired. She showed him the work, and he nodded. Something that might have been a smile crossed his lips.

"Good work," he said. "Tell me: you're Dunmer but you bear an Imperial given name. Are you from Morrowind?"

"Actually, I was born in the Imperial City. Wasn't there for long, though."

"Ah, so the natives still see you as a foreigner. Is life good for you in Balmora?"

Jane thought a bit before answering. Why did people like Varro think anyone felt safe answering such questions honestly? "It's home. With all the good and bad it brings."

"Do the native Dunmer ever hire you?"

"Usually it's humans or other Mer. Got an Argonian client once."

"Why don't you move to Pelagiad? Everyone there was born outside of this bleak land the way you were, so you'd have no shortage of clients."

She knew the place. A little Imperial charter town nestled in the green hills of the Ascadian Isles, a few days to the south. A safe and cheery place where nothing much happened, where the bright streets and tidy farm plots gave no place for the imagination to hide.

Best to deflect.

"Pelagiad's a little rich for my taste. Maybe when I get more money," she said.

"Nonsense! Marry some jolly old sergeant who's turned in his commission. You can live off his pension while you get more clients. And when he's dead and gone, well, you're a Mer, so you'll be in the prime of your life. Marry for love the second time, when you can afford to."

Varro's advice sounded more like misguided paternalism than a come-on. But she didn't want to play along any further. "Maybe someday. I get a lot of business in Balmora, actually."

"True. Most of the business is in the big cities. Be careful. It's not always a friendly place for citizens like us."

She faked a chuckle. "Don't worry. I was born far away, but I'm still Dunmer. I blend in."

Which was a lie. But one that would satisfy him.

*********

She spent the night curled up in a cot placed in a small but surprisingly cozy basement cell. The next morning, she ran into Maiko, the Redguard soldier she'd met at the Talori party. He procured some breakfast for her: thick saltrice porridge and thin wine.

"Varro's all right," Maiko said. "Sometimes he gets a little nosy."

"I didn't know you legion types were allowed to speak your mind like that," Jane said, raising an eyebrow.

"You can say what you want here. You just have to be smart about when and where you do it."

"Hmm. He seemed worried about Balmora. Is there anything I should know?" Jane asked.

"That's 'cause worrying about Balmora is literally Varro's job."

"Are you worried about it?"

Maiko shook his head. "Nah, not really. It's got problems, but I've seen worse. I used to be stationed in Taurus Hall, out in the Reach. That place was way more tense."

With that done, she walked back home to Balmora, the pleasing weight of a full coin purse added to her pack.

Jane got back in the early afternoon and rested for the remainder of the day. She thought about visiting Daria, but the long trek had tired her, and she had more work tomorrow. Work she wouldn't get paid for but still needed to do.

She arose early the next day and reached the temple as the sun rose behind Red Mountain's smoky veil. Walking through the door returned her to darkness, the anteroom's rounded corners and uneven surfaces much like the adobe homes that the Dunmer had lived in for centuries. Dunmer homes were extensions of the land, mixed from mud and water and ash. It would not take much for that land to reclaim them. Morrowind was not a forgiving place.

Feldrelo Sadri, the priestess and master of the Balmora temple, bowed her head before a tapestry woven with sacred words. She turned slowly at Jane's arrival. Feldrelo was a Dunmer woman whose skin was light almost to the point of translucence. Her gaunt and careworn face seemed pulled back by her tightly wound bun of black hair, and her eyes bulged slightly as if from trying to see in her dark home. Her blue robes and gilded vestments conveyed authority but not luxury.

"I am here to offer my services," Jane said as she lowered her gaze, adopting the formality the temple expected. Insincere formality—she knew it, and the temple certainly knew it as well—but they appreciated the effort.

"Of course, child," Feldrelo said, her voice dry like old bones. "Please, come to my office. Your concerns are mine."

Jane hesitated. She could lie and say she had other work later that day and needed to get started. But while Imperials loved to finish tasks and move on, Dunmer preferred to dawdle. Not to say that Jane disliked dawdling, but she'd rather do it at a cornerclub or in her room.

So she followed Feldrelo, who'd already started her slow and shuffling walk to an adjoining room. A pot of tea steamed on her desk. The starchy smell confirmed it as brewed from a spiky trama root. A polite interrogation followed. It started with praise of Jane's intermittent temple attendance, and also stressed her more frequent absences. Then came questions about her family. Jane tried to find a way of admitting she had no idea about them (other than Trent) while still sounding like a good Dunmer daughter. Then some talk about the saint-scrolls she'd made for the temple in the past and how those indicated a piety that she really ought to express by being more involved in matters of faith.

"The Tribunal Temple is your home, Jane. Though you were not born in Morrowind, our blood does flow through your veins," Feldrelo said, pouring herself another cup of now-cold trama root tea.

"And I feel that, Muthsera Sadri. Absolutely." And thanks for reminding me about not being born here, she thought. "That's why I'm here. To show my respect. Just give me the word, and I'll start—"

Feldrelo clucked and shook her head. "You still behave like an Imperial. I fear Balmora is probably the worst place for someone like you. Great House Hlaalu cavorts with the Empire, adopting its thoughtless ways. Perhaps you should go instead to Ald'ruhn, or even Vivec City. Yes, Vivec City would be a good place, I think. I can sign a petition so that you'd be able to live somewhere other than the Foreign Canton."

"I am honored. But..." Jane trailed off, trying to think of an excuse. Imperials usually understood when you weren't interested. Because, in the end, they were too self-absorbed to pester you more than necessary. Dunmer didn't get that. They never stopped. "Balmora is my family's home. And even though we don't have the old house anymore, my brother and I still have to take care of things until Dad gets back."

In the unlikely event that he did.

"Let your brother stay. He has given himself to the ways of the outlander."

"He has," Jane sighed, trying to sound sad. "But he's still kin. And I'm a little worried what might happen if I'm not looking out for him. He's picked up some bad habits."

Some of which she partook in and enjoyed.

"You are truly a Dunmer," Feldrelo said. "Our people are a family gathered around a flickering hearth, a lone warmth in the endless ashen night. You understand that. How sad a sign of these times that an outlander like you would know what so many natives ignore."

Finally, Feldrelo led Jane to a hallway deeper in the temple. Jane had no idea how much time had passed in the woman's office. Thoughts of day and night had vanished, replaced only by the fire of flickering braziers and the shadows that danced about them. It might be evening, for all she knew. No, no way they'd been there that long. Probably just late morning.

Her workspace was a bench placed before a blank adobe wall. A big pot of black paint, sanctified with ground beetle shells and dust from Necrom's holy corpses, waited for her brush.

"I will leave you here to work."

Work, in this case, meant a painting of St. Delyn the Wise done in the traditional Dunmer style. She didn't do it for piety's sake. Like so much else, it was for show. Because if she did need Dunmer patrons one day, it'd look good for her to have done some temple work. Because if worse came to worst and the legion bugged out, she needed to show she could be part of the community.

And maybe because, for all its faults and xenophobia, the Tribunal Temple had fed her and Trent in the lean years after they lost the house. Before J'dash took them in. Hunger deepened gratitude.

Imperials saw the world for what it was in form. But the Dunmer world consisted of saints and gods and spirits.

When painting St. Delyn, Jane was no longer Jane. She instead became the Dunmer people, driven by faith across ash and salt. What St. Delyn looked like didn't matter. What mattered was what he represented: law, wisdom, and benevolence. Her strokes were thick and bold, following the patterns of long-dead masters. Abstract on their own, they took shape only in aggregate. Robed St. Delyn soon stood tall with an open book at his feet, uncompromisingly two-dimensional. Imperial art privileged the viewer and the naked eye. Dunmer art privileged history and ritual.

She could do this blind. And she was sure some Dunmer artists had. Temples were never very well lit, and her vision already strained from the effort. But who needed eyes for this art? Muscle memory—perhaps ancestral memory—guided her hands. This image of St. Delyn was like all others, and it would take supreme arrogance for any artist to make a saint—whom all believers served—their own.

Jane returned, standing in the present day, in the Third Era and 424th Year of the Imperial Calendar. The wall now proclaimed St. Delyn's glory. No signature this time. She'd have to trust that Sadri would acknowledge her work and, if asked, mention it to others.

Exhausted and quite certain it was late in the night, Jane went in search of Muthsera Sadri to report that she'd finished.

*********

Jane tried not to slack too often. Laziness was a bad habit, one she enjoyed but could not often afford. She'd earned it this time, though. Varro had paid a tidy sum, and the temple work was a nice addition to her portfolio. At least the temple had paid for her materials.

Thus, she spent the next day idling in the Lucky Lockup with Daria, the Empire and the Tribunal Temple both feeling reassuringly distant and absurd. Later on, they returned to Jane's apartment. Stretched out on the balcony, the sun bright and warm, Daria took out the book she'd brought while Jane sketched on a piece of paper.

She drew without thinking, translating the harsh angles of Moonmoth Legion Fort and the equally strict curves of the temple into new shapes, spiraling around a slender figure curled up in a fetal position, bound by what was around her but still apart from it. Unique, vibrant, and her own.

When painting her own work, Jane was only Jane.

Musical Closer - Cemetry Gates, by The Smiths

The End

A neat interlude from Jane’s perspective.

I found myself rather liking Varro. Straightforward, professional and, it seems, interested in trying to help others.

Feldrelo was quite the contrast to Varro and provided a great ‘other half’ to compare aspects of Imperial and Dunmeri culture.

Finally, the episode artfully went full circle as Jane ‘became’ Imperial while painting Varro, Dunmer while painting St Delyn and simply Jane when doing her own work.

Okay, I need to start keeping bookmarks, I refuse to skip any of this. Rock 'n' roll lifestyle by Cake. Haven't seen that yet. Post 68. Here we go. They're eating weird food for lunch. I'm already Lol'ing! ... Even the part when the silt strider drowns out their conversation! How do you think of this stuff?

Omg... "Daria bought a big green beetle-shell hat".... That just floored me! One thing I can tell you, Clavier, is that some of this humor is rubbing into my own Morrowind story. I wrote a new Joan a couple days ago and there's a bit of laughter in it (for me, anyway). Can't help it!

Loling aside, I totally get Daria's concern. I'd hate for her to get caught. And the thing is, she wouldn't even get blamed for her forgery, right? Her boss would somehow make sure to cast all blame on Daria, somehow.

She showed up for all two of her voluteer sessions! And because of this, she's got an actual assignment now!

She can cast five spells! I didn't know she can cast spells! Of course, most of them probably fizzle. This is going to be interesting though. She's got an actual caper to embark upon. Like, Daria's a secret agent now.🥷

Damn. Well this is intriguing. I'll read more later. Just one chapter today. Don't want to skim your work, Clavier, and don't want to miss one word.

Like Acadian, I thoroughly enjoyed this look at the world from Jane's perspective.

I always thought it was odd how the forts (not castles) in Morrowind has the -moth suffix. Moonmoth, Frostmoth, etc... I wonder why the Imperials chose that? Except Fort Darius. That is weird.

I always saw those forts as being naked icons of Imperial aggression. They are always located next to Dunmer settlements. But they are not there to guard them. They are there to control them. Their Brutalist architecture only reinforces that feeling, when set beside the organic look of the native Dunmer buildings.

I keep forgetting that while Jane is a Dunmer, she is an outlander as well. Not an easy circumstance to be in.

She does show her chops in her assessment of Varro (his name always makes me think Varus, and I wonder if Emperor Uriel haunts the corridors of the palace late at night saying "Varro, bring me back my legions!"). In any case, she sizes him up not simply physically but culturally as well.

I enjoyed Varro's advice to marry for pragmatic reasons at first. Then outlive your spouse and marry for the love the second time around.

Wow, it seems like everyone is Oblivion-bent upon telling Jane how to live her life, and where.

I liked how you contrasted the differences in culture between Jane's visits to the fort and temple. While Jane is caught in the middle, and not belonging in either. She has to create her own space to belong within.

Episode 7: The Pilgrim's Inertia

Chapter 1

The air in the Morgendorffer house had grown stifling.

Maybe it was the rising heat of late spring, made humid by vapors from the Odai River and the swamps of the Bitter Coast. Maybe it was mom's sullen disappointment as she dwelled on her eldest daughter's latest networking failure. Maybe it was just the inevitable result of four people crammed into a single home.

Regardless of the reason, Daria craved any opportunity to escape, even if it meant another dreary day at Drenlyn Academy.

She took her time ambling down the sour-smelling riverside markets that resounded with the sharp cracks of food vendors breaking open the shells of cooked scribs. Her booted feet tramped through shallow puddles and circumnavigated the deeper ones as the yellow sun shone rich and bright in skies cleared by last night's rain.

At least she was out. Things hadn't gone well since her episode with the Mages Guild. Part of her was wondering if they'd ever go well again.

Daria reached the Drenlyn grounds before most. A few early risers swapped gossip in the shadow of the courtyard's big emperor parasol. Deciding that chatting with average Drenlyn students was an ordeal she didn't need that day, Daria made a beeline for the library. Nothing repelled the popular crowd quite like books. Once safely ensconced within the library's dusty interior, Daria walked over to the far shelf, wondering if she wanted to tackle something new or lose herself in the familiar. She raised her right hand, fingers hovering over the spine of Feyfolken.

"Hey."

The feminine Dunmer voice made her think of Synda, and Daria jumped back in panic. Then she realized it was Jane, who stood in a nook between the bookshelf and the wall. Daria exhaled and adjusted her glasses.

"Just out of curiosity, is there a reason you're trying to scare me to death?" she asked as her pounding heart settled back into a normal beat.

"Well, I almost got scared to death this morning, so I thought I'd share the experience," Jane said.

"Your generosity is a beacon to us all." Daria noted the tightness in her friend's voice. Hard to see in the room's thick shadows, but something in Jane's stance made her look ready to bolt. "What happened?"

"Oh, the usual Labor Town shenanigans," she said, finishing with a little sigh. "It's not that big of a deal. Not like I actually got hurt. So yeah, I was on my merry way here when a huge barrel—" she spread her hands wide, "—fell from a second-story balcony and landed where I'd been walking a second earlier. I felt the air whoosh by."

Daria's heart froze for a moment, her mind reeling at the news. Morrowind without Jane... She gulped, not letting her consternation show. Good old Imperial stiff upper lip.

"What was in the barrel?" she asked, not sure what to say.

"Uh, cheap booze since you're so curious. Meaning it was heavy. If I'd been one second slower, that thing would have hit me square on the head." Her lips attempted a smile. "And I'd be about as smart as Briltasi."

"You'd be smarter than her, even with a serious head wound."

"And a lot deader." Jane leaned back against the wall.

"For what it's worth, I am glad you're still among the living. Even if that means you have to deal with the annoyances that brings."

Daria waited, sensing that Jane was searching for a witty comeback. She wanted to hear that inexhaustible Jane confidence, one that took the worst society threw at her and turned it back on them with style and aplomb.

But Jane stayed silent for a long time. "Yeah, me too. Puts things into perspective. Like maybe someone was finally watching out for me."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean that maybe all those temple visits finally paid off."

Jane rarely mentioned her religion. It wasn't as if she was shy about poking fun at the Tribunal Temple's corruption and pomposity. But at the core of it all, she believed. Daria didn't know why. Three gods that were once mortals? If those gods were real, why was Morrowind under the Empire's rule? Shouldn't living god-kings be enough to ensure Morrowind's independence? Every Imperial knew that the gods of Morrowind were nothing more than Dunmer priests in layers of makeup and weighed down by tawdry jewelry, reciting absurd aphorisms to the adoring masses.

Jane should know that. But Daria knew better than to press her luck on this issue.

"Uh, good?"

"Maybe I'm just telling that to make myself feel better. I should get to Sera Defoe's. Talk to you later?"

"Sure."

Jane righted herself and walked out of the library, leaving Daria with the dusty tomes.

*********

Jane's confidence returned by the end of the day. Daria walked home (as slowly as possible), confident that life had gone back to its normal state of tolerable disappointment. She spent the evening in forced socialization with the rest of the family, her fingers struggling to pluck the notes of old Colovian songs from the out-of-tune family lyre as Dad bellowed out the words. She kept hoping that the guards would shut them down for disturbing the peace, but no such luck.

She and Jane met at the Lucky Lockup after school the next day, where they shared scrib jerky and mazte.

"No other close calls?" Daria asked before lifting her clay cup and taking a swig.

"Not beyond listening to my brother trying to play sea shanties," Jane said with a shrug. "But I did decide on something."

"Would that something be earplugs?"

"No, though those might be handy. Do you know about the Pilgrimages of the Seven Graces?"

"I read about it. That's where Dunmer pilgrims visit seven Tribunal shrines to pay their respects, right?"

"Should've guessed you'd know. Anyway, I think it's time for me to go on a pilgrimage."

Daria straightened up in her chair. Jane had said it totally casually, but Daria recognized the certainty in her friend's voice.

"Uh, okay. You're doing the whole thing?" Daria tried to remember the details. The shrines were scattered across Vvardenfell. It'd take weeks to visit them all. "How would you manage that with all your commissions?"

Jane held up a hand. "I'm too poor and foreign to do the whole thing. No, for me, it'll be the Pilgrimage of One Close-by and Relatively Convenient Grace. But that's better than nothing."

Daria relaxed a bit, though she took another drink. The last thing she wanted was to be without Jane for a month or more. "I guess that's pretty reasonable."

"Yeah, reasonable," Jane said, her gaze going from Daria to the worn surface of the corkbulb-wood table. "A good, pious Dunmer would say to hell with their livelihood and visit all seven shrines. Religion's a pretty big deal here. That's the nice thing about being a dirty outlander. The locals don't expect as much from you."

Easy for you to say, Daria thought. Mom still hadn't given up on the idea of Daria joining some guild or company.

Jane kept her eyes on the table, looking vaguely defeated. Then she raised her head and smiled. "Lucky for me, Trent's heading over to Pelagiad in a few days. There's a fair there he wants to play at. He's been there before, and he said there's a little boat that takes pilgrims up to the Shrine of Humility. Figure I'll tag along with him and then strike out to pay my humble respects."

Daria frowned. "On your own?"

"Should be safe enough. The shrine's in the Ascadian Isles. Not much there except green hills and wide roads."

"And the slave labor that the Hlaalu don't like to admit having. How long will this trip take?"

"About a week."

A week. An entire week when Daria would have no means of escape other than the academy. Plenty of the days ahead were scheduled to be spent helping in mom's home office, slowly roasting under her judgmental gaze and voice.

Jane smiled. "Aw, Daria, are you that worried about me?"

"I'm worried about myself. Things aren't great at home right now."

"No reason you couldn't join us. Ooh, you'd get to spend some time with Trent!"

Daria blushed. "Uh, well, if I do go, it'd mostly be to escape."

"Right. Escape into my brother's arms."

"Escape out of my damn house!" Daria shook her head. "It's a moot point, anyway. My parents would never approve something like that."

"Maybe you could tell your mom that you're trying to learn more about Dunmer culture. She's always trying to get you to be more involved, right?"

"To her, more involved means sucking up to some parasitic guild so that I can contribute to the Morgendorffer coffers and maybe net her a few more clients." Daria leaned back in her chair. "In other words, I'd much rather travel with you—"

"And Trent!"

"—than be stuck here."

"You just have to talk your mom into it. Maybe you inherited her lawyerly talent for debate."

Daria sighed. "Even if I did, she still has formal training. The only experience I have comes from arguing with Quinn. But my sanity's on the line if I have to stay here much longer, so I'll give it a shot."

"Hey, at least if you go insane, you won't have to attend Drenlyn anymore."

"Tempting, but I'd rather deal with annoying instructors than be moved to some dark cell."

A joke, but it didn't feel like one. Daria needed to get out.

Musical Closer - Coffee and TV, by Blur

Now that you mention it, the Ancestor Moths and their tie to the Elder Scrolls are a big deal for the Imperials, so I suppose it starts from there.

Nothing repelled the popular crowd quite like books.
Some things never change.

Jane's near misadventure with the beer barrel made me almost laugh. Just a little while ago I was listening to The Dirt Podcast, which is a show about archaeology, anthropology, and our shared human history. They were talking about ancient record keeping, and how in ancient Sumer the earliest records are mostly about beer deliveries.

Part of me has always wanted to do the Tribunal Temple questline in Morrowind. But my own low personal opinion of the Tribunal always keeps me from doing it. I just cannot manage it, not even in roleplay.

Wow, so Jane is going to do the whole Pilgrimage thing. Good for her. In spite of what I just said, obviously most Dunmer would not share my opinion of their religion. In the very least she will get out and see the world. Hopefully she won't get eaten by an Alit or Kagouti in the process. In the very least the Temple lady might be a little nicer to her. Not that I see Jane ever truly becoming zealous. But she might get the inspiration for some cool artwork from the ordeal.

That's the nice thing about being a dirty outlander. The locals don't expect as much from you.
Or as she once said: "I like having low self-esteem. It makes me feel special." Well here is to visiting the one close and convenient shrine.

Oooh, Jane has a great idea in Daria tagging along. She will be networking!

‘Nothing repelled the popular crowd quite like books.’
- - Like SubRosa, I was struck by this chuckleworthy line.

”If I'd been just one second slower that thing would have hit me square on the head." Her lips attempted a smile. "And I'd be about as smart as Briltasi."

Daria needs to escape House Morgendorffer and the town of Balmora – at least temporarily. And Jane, having just found religion in a barrel of cheap whiskey, has decided that a pilgrimage is appropriate. I’m glad that Daria is going to try to go with Jane.

Oh no, she's been caught by Johanna. Everything's falling apart with this harebrained plan to discover magic in Jo-Jo's house. Yeah, I don't know Daria very well, I only know her from her occasional appearances in Beavis & Butthead, but she does not strike me as any kind of liar, or charlatan.

Whoa, she quit the Mages Guild! Aw, that sucks. It just seems the guild could've been so perfect for her. You know, if she'd been in a different guild, with a superior who wasn't so nefarious. Maybe she'd receive actual training as a studious mage. Daria being somewhat nerdy, it'd be perfect for her then.

Chapter 2

Daria returned home to find Mom pacing in her office and clutching a stack of parchments.

"Honestly! Why is it so hard for my clients to understand that bribery is against Imperial law?"

"Because so many of the Empire's best and brightest still accept bribery?" Daria said as she walked past. She noted that the votive candles at the household shrine to Julianos, the Imperial god of law and reasoning and everything else in mom's career, had gone out.

"Yes, but you'd think the Empire's officials would at least encourage a certain level of subtlety for such things. Civilized people bribe each other with investment opportunities, not bags of coins!"

"Uh, did you know that the votive candles went out?" Daria asked.

Mom looked up from the papers. "Oh, for goodness' sake! Daria, would you re-light them? I'll say a prayer later, but I really need to get through this paperwork."

Sitting down at her desk, Mom grabbed a quill from the inkwell and began writing.

"Truly an impressive example of Imperial piety," Daria said as she took the tinder set from the altar. Flames soon crowned the green wax candles.

Daria had been raised to believe in the Empire's Nine Divines and how, for all the Empire's statecraft and military might, its true strength rested on the simple faith of its innumerable farmers, tradesmen, and soldiers. She'd read a few atheistic tracts during a rebellious period but now accepted that gods of some kind had to exist. Even if they didn't, rejecting them didn't make much sense from the perspective of her personal risk-reward ratio.

Most Imperials treated the Divines like a holy favor service. Given that the Empire thrived (or had at least treaded water for the past few decades), Daria supposed that meant the Nine Divines were okay with that. Mom always got worshipful before a big case but was otherwise all business. Julianos might be the source of law and wisdom, but Helen Morgendorffer had done all the work of putting that into practice.

Dinner turned out to be scrib pie that Dad had bought on the way home. Daria ate in silence while she built up her nerve, anticipating her parents' objections. She imagined their reactions and came up with imagined responses to those reactions, her mind spinning off dozens of branching conversations between bites.

Finally, she decided to go for it. She put her tin fork down on the plate, a steaming insect chunk still skewered on the tines.

"Jane's going on a trip to Pelagiad with her brother. She asked me if I could join them."

Her parents and sister all looked up from their plates.

"Pelagiad's a few days from here," Mom said. "Why is Jane going?"

"Trent's a musician, and he's going to play at some kind of trade fair over there."

Quinn rolled her eyes. "Daria, you're not supposed to date bards who play at fairs! You date the ones who play for noble families. Not," she added, as Mom and Dad briefly turned their attentions to her, "that I know anything about dating bards. But it's common sense!"

"I'm not dating him!" Daria protested, hoping that the blush creeping into her cheeks wasn't too obvious. "The only reason I'm going is to keep Jane company."

"But why's Jane going?" Mom asked.

For a moment, Daria thought about lying and saying Jane had a commission in Pelagiad. Yet she saw all of the world's hypocrisy in her mother's interrogating gaze and decided she was tired of it.

"Jane's going on a pilgrimage to a shrine near Pelagiad."

"That's great!" Dad said. "Good to see you showing some piety, kiddo! You know, the Nine Divines reward those who are faithful." He pointed at her when he said that, as if dispensing some jocular fatherly wisdom.

Now for the big moment. "It's not an Imperial Cult shrine," Daria said. "It's for Morrowind's gods."

Dad dropped his fork. "Young lady! In this house—"

"Daria, are you planning on worshipping at this shrine?" Mom said, leaning forward over her plate. She had that look that said she didn't yet believe the worst but wanted to be sure.

"I wouldn't let her do it, Mom," Quinn said. "You have that big case coming up, remember? It wouldn't look good in Julianos's eyes if your eldest daughter was off doing whatever for Morrowind's gods."

Daria sighed. "Jane's going to be the one worshipping there, not me. I'm just keeping her company."

"I believe you, Daria," Mom said. "You've complained about the Tribunal Temple before. Just like you've complained about every institution," she added, with an almost mournful tone.

"You call them complaints; I call them valid criticisms."

Dad squinted. "So you're still with the Nine Divines?"

"Yes, dad."

"Great!" He turned his focus back to his pie.

"Is Trent an experienced traveler?" Mom asked.

"He's been all over western Vvardenfell."

Mom leaned back in her chair. "I do applaud you going out to see the world. Too much of your knowledge is secondhand, and there's a reason the courts prefer firsthand accounts."

Daria clenched her teeth. The last thing she wanted was a lecture on why traveling with Jane was a good thing. She already thought it was a good thing!

"So, it's settled?" Daria said, bracing herself for the worst.

"Not so fast. What about your work at Drenlyn?"

"Please. A trained monkey could finish most of those assignments. Whatever I miss, I'll be able to make up."

"Very well. But my big case is coming up and I don't want to risk our family seeming impious. Divine disfavor is the last thing I need right now."

"Why would Julianos be bothered? Jane's the one worshipping false gods. Not me." Somehow, saying that didn't sit right with Daria. Still, it was true. Anyone could see the Tribunal was a sham.

"Yes, but it doesn't look good for an Imperial girl to get too close to an alien faith." Mom's eyes turned up to the ceiling, her expression calculating.

Annoyed, Daria crossed her arms. "Do you want me to re-light the votive candles a few more times?"

Mom's expression brightened. "Here's an idea. There's an Imperial Cult shrine in Pelagiad. I'll give you some incense, and you can take it to the cult altar and burn it. Make sure you do whatever obeisances and rituals the priest tells you to do."

Daria supposed that was wise. More importantly, it was easy. "All right."

"Great! Now I can net the benefits of a pilgrimage without leaving the office. I think this will be an exciting trip for you, Daria!"

Daria scowled. Nothing soured an adventure quite like parental approval.

*********

Daria lingered in the dining room for a bit, reading by the light of the setting sun. She preferred the cold and rain of winter, but the longer days at least meant more time spent in books without cutting into the candle budget.

"Hey there, Daria!" Dad said.

Daria didn't look up from Marobar Sul's The Importance of Where, but she prepped herself mentally. Things always went bad just when they started to seem good.

"Hey," she said.

"I know Jane's a good kid, and I'm sure Trent is too," he said.

"What's the problem?"

"No problem! Just that traveling the great outdoors can be a little dangerous." Dad pulled out a chair and sat at the table across from her, an oblong wooden box under his arm.

She looked up at him. "Like I said, Trent's no stranger to living rough. And it's not like the Ascadian Isles are especially threatening."

"Right. Well, I know it might be a shock to you, but old dad's been around a bit."

"I know. Your Fighters Guild days."

He gulped. "Yeah. My dad didn't think I was man enough, so he—well, that doesn't matter now." He took a deep breath and placed the box on the table. It clinked. "I know you don't like sparring anymore," Dad said. "Too dorky for a cool kid like you to do with a parent."

"It's more that I don't see the need to militarize child rearing. At least not until the Empire finds something else to conquer," Daria said. It had been ages since she'd thought about sparring the way they used to, back on Stirk.

Her, Quinn, and Dad would head out to the rocky chaparral above the docks of Charach with their training swords in hand, first made of wood, then of blunted metal. He'd always turn it into a game—Jake, the pirate king who threatened the island, or Jake, the wounded knight who needed his brave daughters to fight in his stead. How he guided their arms and watched their stances, Quinn whining all the while about how she wanted to be back inside with her dolls, and Daria grinning and asking Dad how to kill an opponent as brutally as possible. And he'd give a sad smile and say the most important thing was for Daria to be safe, but if she had to take someone out, it was best done quick—

Daria blinked, her eyes watering. Probably from the volcanic dust drifting down from Red Mountain.

Dad opened the box. Inside lay an iron blade still in its sheath, the leather of the hilt faded and worn.

The book almost slipped from Daria's hands. This was the real thing.

"This is what I started out with," Dad said. "It's about the same length and weight as your old trainer, so you should feel right at home!"

"Dad, I've never been in a real fight before." Daria tensed up. Was he that worried? Talking about killing imaginary foes was one thing, but would she have the fortitude to actually use this?

"I think it's better that you have it just in case. I know things aren't as dangerous now as they were when I was a kid. And thank the Nine Divines for that! Pick it up."

Daria hesitated before putting the book down and reaching out, her right hand slowly closing on the hilt. She lifted it from the box, its weight sending a tingle of familiarity up her arm.

Dad frowned. "With your build, you might be better off with a spear of some kind. But this is all I have, and I like to think I did a pretty good job of training you girls!"

"Quinn probably unlearned it all to make more room for fashion." Daria raised the blade to the light. The iron was too dark to reflect the sunlight.

"Heh, oh, I'm sure your sister still remembers a bit. It's muscle memory, and that kind of thing doesn't go away. Anyway, I don't think you'll have to use this, but I want you to take it with you."

Daria placed it back in the box and met her dad's gaze. It was one of the rare moments where he just seemed like the gentle man who'd seen too many bloody things in his youth.

"Thanks, dad."

"Great, kiddo! How about we get up early tomorrow and practice some swordsmanship! Er, wait, I mean swords-woman-ship! Yeah!"

"Under one condition: don't pretend to be a brigand or injured knight or try to make it some elaborate story."

Dad looked puzzled. "I guess I could pretend to be something more local. An Ashlander, maybe? Wait, are they bad guys?"

"How about: be a dad training his daughter in the art of combat."

He grinned. "Can do! See you then."

"See you."

Dad got up and left. Daria returned to her book but found it hard to concentrate. She realized she was about to leave Balmora and explore Morrowind. Admittedly, she'd be exploring one of the safest parts of Morrowind. But travel meant danger.

Dad lending her his old sword was proof of that.

Musical Closer - Baseball, by Ozma

Daria managed to navigate the dinner negotiations pretty well. Thankfully, her mother popped the idea of paying homage to the Nine while in Pelagiad. Easy to accomplish and anything to prevent her family from thinking she might get Tribunal on herself.

’Daria scowled. Nothing soured an adventure quite like parental approval.’
- - She’s never satisfied though. . . .

The episode then took a more serious, even poignant, tone as Daria’s dad offered up his old sword.

"Quinn probably unlearned it all to make more room for fashion."
- - I see Daria believes in the quantitative brain capacity theory.

The potential for actual danger on the roads is now hitting Daria. Better somewhat prepared than surprised however.

Bribery is against the law? What madness is this!!!

Civilized people bribe each other with investment opportunities, not bags of coins
Mom comes through with the voice of reason. The Lobbying industry rejoices!

I liked the family shrine to Julianos. It reminds me of the Roman household shrines.

Nothing soured an adventure quite like parental approval.
Its almost as bad as having your mom drop you off and pick you up from a concert. (yep, that was my first concert!)

Dad was in the Fighter's Guild? That is neat! I love how you translated his being sent to military school to that.

And that is also cool. A Daddy-daughter longswording practice session. Hopefully Daria will not need the sword. But in case she does, it will be good to have it, and know how to use it.

Chapter 3

Daria spent the last night before the trip with Jane and Trent in their apartment. Bellies warm with drinks from the South Wall Cornerclub, they gathered on the balcony while Red Mountain puffed smoke into the hot night air. Leaning against the balcony wall, Daria felt the world, with all its possibilities, open around her.

The three of them awoke early and stood at Balmora's gate as dawn's light fumed in the east. The ground shook as a silt strider disembarked, its towering and segmented legs slow but sure as they walked along the Odai's banks.

"Last chance to make sure we got everything we need," Trent said, his eyes on the horizon. "Food and water?"

"Check," Jane said. She crouched on the ground, packs open around her.

"Cash?"

"Not as much as I'd like, but check."

"Potions?"

"We've got three healing, three stamina, and a couple curative."

Trent scratched his head. "Sounds good to me. Let's go."

"Wait! We also have bedrolls, toiletries, walking sticks—"

"Whatever, Jane. I've got a good feeling about this trip. I trust my gut."

"Your gut might end up outside your body if we don't prepare well." Jane sighed and continued checking.

Daria smiled at Trent's feigned indifference. A guy like him had to know everything there was about excursions, but he didn't let it worry him. Jane didn't travel much, so she was probably almost as nervous as Daria.

"Okay, looks like we Llayns have everything we need. Daria?" Jane asked.

Daria had already tallied up her personal supplies. The sword rested in a scabbard attached to her belt. She'd spent plenty of time practicing under Dad's tutelage. Also in her pack was a pouch of spices and wood shavings from the Gold Coast, destined to be burned on Pelagiad's altar. A pilgrimage within a pilgrimage.

"I'm ready," she said, leaning on the rugged walking stick she'd brought.

They made good time through the rocky highlands around Balmora. By noon, they passed the squat keep of Moonmoth Legion Fort, the structure looking like a stone monster vainly trying to hide in the foothills. Jokes and comments kept them entertained, Daria and Jane doing the heavy lifting while Trent occasionally chimed in, a relaxed smile on his handsome face.

Maybe, Daria thought, this was the life meant for her. Something free from the vagaries of guild or company, where she followed her own beliefs with those she trusted most. As her skinny legs struggled up the hillsides, all the Empire felt within her grasp.

They passed through a gap in the jagged ridge east of Balmora and reached the desolation of the Foyada Mamea. Daria knew it by reputation as one of the enormous lava-forged gullies, called foyadas, stretching forth like stony arteries from Red Mountain's heart. She gaped at the sheer bleakness, the route black and desolate for miles in both directions. Petrified trees clung to the foyada's sides, their stiff and scraggly limbs like the fingers of burned corpses. The ground possessed a smooth and glassy quality. Molten rock had melted away the hard edges.

She shivered in spite of the heat. Probably didn't hurt to get another reminder that Vvardenfell was essentially one enormous volcano, quiet but still very much alive. Imperial geologists classified it as being of low risk for eruption.

Low risk didn't mean no risk.

The party stayed silent as it traversed the open-air lava tube. On occasion, they heard the clicking sounds of squat black beetles crawling across the rocky ground. Going downhill should've been easy, but sharp pebbles kept finding their way into Daria's boots. Simply keeping her balance on the tilted ground posed another challenge, and each awkward step sent another rush of tiny stones tumbling down the slopes. Ash entered her lungs and provoked coughing fits. Weariness made the sword on her belt weigh as much as an anvil.

The late afternoon sun's steady heat brutalized them further. Daria felt like her thick hair was cooking her scalp. Sweat poured down her face and plastered the ash and grime against her skin. Worst of all, her glasses threatened to slip down her nose. Losing another pair was not an option, so she held her glasses with one hand and gripped her walking stick with the other. Jane and Trent were already some distance ahead, tiny figures in the foyada's enormity. Jane stopped and looked back, then said something to Trent, who also stopped. Daria gritted her teeth. A hike shouldn't be so overwhelming.

"You doing okay, Daria?" Jane asked as Daria got closer, her query echoing down the igneous gully.

"I'm fine."

"You're looking pretty red. Think you got some sunburn there."

Daria stopped, putting all her weight on the walking stick as sweat dripped down her neck. She let her long hair fall over her face, not wanting Trent to see how much of a mess she looked.

"Lousy half-Nordic heritage," Daria muttered.

Jane chuckled. "Hey, look on the bright side. If we're ever in Skyrim, you'll be prancing through the snow while me and Trent get frostbite."

"Frostbite doesn't sound that bad right now," Daria said.

"Hey, Trent, maybe we should call it a day? It's getting late."

"I'm cool with that," Trent said. "We got plenty of time anyway. You're doing pretty good for an Imperial kid, Daria."

Daria's blush rivaled her sunburn at the comment. Gods, she did look like a little kid stumbling along after her elders. She was half tempted to hike up to Red Mountain and throw herself in the first lava vent.

"Yeah, you're doing fine," Jane said, her tone consoling. "Don't sweat it."

"Too late."

*********

They made camp in a small copse of dead trees, the wood long since turned to stone. Daria still coughed in the dry and dusty air, but the evening was at least cooler. The setting sun crept beneath the ridge, its dying light rendering the world in red and black. She sat a mere foot away from Trent, who played a slow and contemplative tune on his lute, the notes warbling against the glassy ridges.

Firewood had been too heavy to carry, and there was nothing in the foyada to burn, but Daria and Jane had pooled their resources to buy a few cheap tallow candles. The first one burned steady as they dined on cold scrib jerkey and lukewarm water. Daria resisted the urge to dump the waterskin's contents on her filthy face. She'd never wanted a bath so badly.

"When we get back," Daria said, "remind me to tell Quinn there's a big cosmetics fair in Foyada Mamea."

"Ooh, I hear soot is really in this year," Jane said. She yawned a moment later. "I think I'm going to turn in. You guys can stay up for a bit. Get some private time." She winked at Daria, who scowled in return. Jane laughed before getting up and walking over to their packs.

Shadows deepened as sunset gave way to evening. Both moons rose in the sky, the bloated red orb of Masser and the smaller shining sphere of Secunda. Daria squinted for a better look at the moons’ pock-marked surfaces the way she used to as a child, wondering if she’d spot the forts and cities built there by Imperials past and—allegedly—still ruled by the Empire today. Like always, she failed to find any hints of long-lost Tatterdemalion or Gallimaufry.

A sudden gust of wind struck, and she gasped in shock. The temperature had plummeted. Instinctively, she scooted closer to Trent. He played on, his music attended only by Daria and the star-crowned moons far above.

"Uh, you play really well," Daria said, hearing her awkwardness in her echo.

"Thanks."

She hoped he'd put an arm around her. For warmth, if nothing else. Instead, he kept playing.

"Why won't you go to the shrine with Jane?" Daria asked.

"'Cause I'm going to play at the fair."

"Oh, right," Daria said, embarrassed at having forgotten.

"Shrines aren't my thing. Way I see it, the gods will do whatever they want. And I'm okay with that. But I'm not going to thank them for it."

"That sounds sensible."

"Exactly," Trent said.

Daria looked up at the night sky. "Jane's one of the most perceptive people I've ever met. So why can't she see through the Tribunal's lies? Most of the people in the temple think she's as much of a foreigner as I am."

Trent was silent for a bit. "It's from when we were kids. We lost the house pretty soon after Mom and Dad moved back to the Imperial City. They said they'd take care of it, but they never did. I was older, so I tried to make coin any way I could. Only way I could help Jane was making sure she stayed in the Balmora temple. Knew she'd get food and a warm bed there, at least."

Daria nodded, thinking guiltily of her own fortunate upbringing.

"Anyway," Trent continued, "she must've liked some of what the priests said."

"I guess I can see that. It's just hard to believe she'd be so blinkered. Any idiot can see that the so-called Tribunal gods are mortals wearing more cosmetics than even my sister would feel comfortable with."

"Uh, careful where you say that," Trent said, glancing around. "Anyway, Janey's not hurting anyone. If believing in something helps you get through the day, I say go for it."

"What if believing in a certain something involves denying facts and logic? Or propping up a corrupt institution?"

Trent shrugged and tuned his lute. Angular tattoos stretched across the left side of his face, like some kind of ancient script.

"What do those tattoos mean? I know a lot of Dunmer use them to show where they were born, and to whom, but I wouldn't be able to recognize any symbols."

"Heh. I got these a long time ago, back when I was still trying to fit in. I know better now."

"So what do they say?" Daria pressed.

"That I'm a poor outlander who wants to look cool." He laughed for a bit, his attempt ending in a hoarse choking fit. "You can't get any kind of tattoo you want in Morrowind. Not if you're a Dunmer, anyway. When I got inked, the tattooist told me what I could show. He didn't give me many choices."

Trent shook his head. "If I ever leave Morrowind for good, I'm going to get some really crazy tattoos that say exactly what I want them to say."

Daria tried to imagine what that might be. "Uh, yeah. That'd be cool." Inwardly, she winced at the thought. Pain didn't bother him, though. How could it, after what he'd been through? Trent would probably smile through the process, make some joke to the artist, and move on when it was done, always free, always sure. She sighed.

"Is it okay if I listen to you play?" Exhaustion beckoned her to sleep, and the cold air numbed her limbs, but she wanted to stay out a little longer. Get a little closer to Trent—to this man who rose above the absurdities around him.

"Fine by me. Just make sure you get enough sleep. We'll be going over easier ground tomorrow, but there's still a lot of walking to do."

"I'll be okay," Daria said. She inched closer so that only a hair's breadth separated them. She wanted to grab him so badly but held herself back. It wouldn't be appropriate. Would seem weird. She was a pale reflection of her sister at the best of times, and was bedraggled and filthy to boot. But she'd stay so that if Trent changed his mind, he could hold her close.

And even if he didn't, she could at least hear his music.

In the silence of Red Mountain's shadow, Trent played on.

*********

Exhausted in her bedroll, Jane had been about to drift off to sleep when she heard Daria and Trent starting to talk. She smiled. It was so fun to put Daria on the spot. She liked seeing the change that came over her friend whenever Trent came by. That maybe, for all her smarts and otherworldly confidence, Daria was still a mortal girl with a crush.

"Jane's one of the most perceptive people I've ever met," Daria said, her monotone voice amplified by the foyada.

That was nice to hear.

"So why can't she see through the Tribunal's lies? Most of the people in the temple think she's as much of a foreigner as I am."

The words hit straight to the core. And the longer Jane listened, the more it hurt. The Tribunal gods were the gods of her people. Her gods. Maybe they hadn't given her much, but they'd never run away. When she was alone in her apartment, hungry and tired, she'd say the same prayers her ancestors uttered and feel their warmth for a fleeting moment. Why couldn't Daria understand that?

Blinking back tears, Jane tried to sleep.

Musical Closer - Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, cover by Lauryn Hill, original by Frankie Valli

’As her skinny legs struggled up the hillsides, all the Empire felt within her grasp.’
This one line concisely tells us much that is confirmed as the episode progresses. Nice to see some optimism from Daria. Her spirit is intrigued by freedom of the road, but her reading has ill-prepared her for the physical challenges involved. Hopefully some time on the road will toughen her up. The walking stick was a good idea.

You artfully show us Daria's crush on Trent as she awkwardly sits close to him and drops hints.

Uh-oh, though well-intentioned, Daria’s Tribunal bashing – while bouncing off Trent – has hurt her friend Jane. Trent actually has the right idea here, whereas Daria’s lack of verbal restraint and forethought. . . .

I can't see Daria joining House Hlaalu, or any of the houses, either. Don't know why, it's just a feeling.

She's wearing her new bug-shell hat! ... Whoa, she's back to Johanna's place! ... and she's being tempted to join Telvanni. Gosh, I have no idea where this is heading.



This is really the huge difference between the natives and the outlander Imperials, right? The outlanders don't even bother collecting up all the eggshells, or building homes into the remains of ancient dinosaur-size beings. Once again, I never really thought about this with any sort of depth until the phrase above.

I like how Jane thinks about how she approaches the portrait of Varro before she actually starts. Like, this is a decision made on-the-spot. Makes me think you've had some experience painting portraits, eh Clavier? ... Because this is what I've heard from a couple other painters over the years. You aren't just choosing colors and blending them, you are also making decisions, and also disembodying yourself from your work. At least, this is what I've heard from a couple others. Wow, that got nailed. well.

OMG what horrible marriage advice (pertaining to moving to Pelagiad)! I can't believe he just said that. Funny thing is, I can totally see vanilla Morrowind's dialog supporting this. I can totally see an NPC in the base game saying such a thing!

I notice you posted a date of 424, which is three years earlier than the events starting TES III. Interesting. Is there a reason for this? Just curious.

83

I can hear all of Trent's lines exactly as he sounded from the show. You really captured how he speaks, man.

"That I'm a poor outlander who wants to look cool."
I love Trent's response. That is so him.

Daria, as ever, shows her supreme talent for fitting her boots right into her mouth with her careless remarks about religion. She knows what she knows, and it never occurs to her that what she says will hurt someone else's feelings. It is what we love about her, and hate about her. Again, you really nailed this part of her personality from the show.

I started watching the entire series again a few months ago, and finished up a few weeks back. You really have gotten these characters down to a tee. I can so easily picture them in my head, and hear their voices when they speak.


Renee: I think the whole idea for this is to show a common person's experience in Morrowind. So Daria is not the Chosen One who is going to destroy Dagoth Ur and bring down the Tribunal (at least I don't think so). So it is set before all that happens to show what Vvardenfell was like before it was irrevocably changed by the doings our player characters.

Chapter 4

Daria awoke with her entire body feeling like an enormous ache covered in dirt. At this point, she'd have been happy to deal with mom's judgmental aura if it meant a long bath, a soft bed, and a hot meal. Stiff muscles slowed her movements as she crawled out of her bedroll and sat down for a cold breakfast of scrib jerky. Trent looked a little worse for wear but otherwise the same. Jane stayed silent through breakfast, her expression guarded.

They reached the Acsadian Isles at midmorning. Daria gasped at the sight: miles and miles of green meadows sprawling from the foyada to the sea. Clear streams tumbled down from the foothills to feed mirror-bright Lake Amaya. Leafy trees grew side-by-side with graceful emperor parasols and other fungi, limbs and caps shading the broad roads. Netch herds drifted above the swards, their blue membranes as bright as mosaic glass.

"It's beautiful," Daria said, too quietly for the others to hear. But like so many things, she knew it was only skin deep. A lot of Vvardenfell's cash crops came from the region's farms and plantations.

And at least some of those cash crops were harvested by forced labor.

The road split not long after they descended the foothills, one branch going east and the other going west, both hugging the shores of Lake Amaya.

"Hey, Janey. I think we can get to the shrine faster if we go east. Don't know if there'll be a boat waiting there, though," Trent said.

"Trying to get rid of me? I'm tempted, but I'll go with you to Pelagiad like we planned." Jane crossed her arms, her voice icy.

Daria felt suddenly uneasy, like the way she used to feel before one of the big fights her parents had when she was younger—mom dropping hints that something was wrong, dad sensing a problem but unable to figure out exactly what had happened. Now she was in dad's shoes.

"I said 'we' could get to the shrine faster going east. Not just you. You think I'm going to abandon you out here?" Trent reached out as if to pat Jane's shoulder, but she stepped away.

"That's not all I heard you say," Jane responded.

Daria sucked in her breath.

Trent blinked. "Huh?"

Jane turned to face both of them. "That little conversation you and Daria had last night? How I'm blinkered, how the Tribunal's just a bunch of Dunmer playing divine dress-up? Yeah, I was still awake when you said all that. I know you don't care about it, Trent, but I was hoping you—" she pointed at Daria "—respected my religion!"

Best to stay calm. Daria straightened her stance. Maybe this was the time to do it. "Jane, don't you think it's a little convenient that your deities look like regular Dunmer in gold paint? And how the Tribunal doesn't seem to actually do very much? History's full of mortals passing themselves off as gods. What's more likely: that a bunch of Mer actually underwent apotheosis? Or that this whole thing is a story the powers-that-be tell in order to keep the tithe money coming in?"

Trent frantically shook his head and waved his arms. What was his problem? Didn't he basically agree? Anyway, Jane was smart. She'd figure it out. She only needed some prompting.

Jane gave a bitter little laugh. "That's all it ever is to you, huh? Everything's a big scam. You can tell me whatever you want, Daria. I'll still believe. The gods were there for me before I ever met you, and they'll be there for me when you're gone."

Daria's heart rate quickened, and a long-dormant sense of panic rose in her chest. Jane turned away. Daria first thought she'd strike out east on her own, but she instead kept walking the western road to Pelagiad at a good pace ahead of the other two.

"Jane—"

Trent walked over to Daria. "Whoa."

"I don't get it. I know she's smart enough to see this," Daria said.

"That's not how it works. It's like I said last night: She's not hurting anyone, so let her be."

"I was letting her be until she decided to go on the offensive!"

Trent sighed. "Let's keep going. She needs some time to cool down."

Daria hoped he was right.

*********

Daria glumly put one foot in front of the other as she plodded to Pelagiad, with bigger things to think about than the natural beauty of the Ascadian Isles. Over and over again, she ruminated on the events leading up to the confrontation with Jane. First of all, Jane had been eavesdropping. Second, Daria was right about the Tribunal. The Dunmer "gods" were mortal grifters.

Jane had to know. She saw through all the rest of the crap, so why was this so hard? Pure stubbornness on her part? The temple supported Morrowind's deeply xenophobic society, one dedicated to maintaining slavery and keeping people like Jane at arm's length. Why did she buy into it?

Or was Daria the problem? It's not like her own faith was much better. The Empire only provided law and order at swordpoint. Its companies and nobles ripped wealth from the earth and adorned the capital's palaces with their thefts. The Imperial Cult propped up a society founded on conquest and war. And Daria was going to burn incense to its gods to help mom win a legal case.

No wonder Jane was mad. But that didn't mean Jane was right about the Tribunal Temple, either.

"I should've stayed home," Daria muttered.

Pelagiad came into view shortly before dusk. It was an Empire town—more specifically, a town designed to look like a hamlet in High Rock or northwestern Cyrodiil, with neat cross-timbered houses capped by sharply peaked slate roofs. Humans were everywhere, their faces of pink and brown a shock after Balmora's gray crowds. She spotted only a few Dunmer, all with western clothes and manners.

The place didn't fit in, but didn't need to. The Empire intended Pelagiad as a show of power; they had willed that a western town exist in the Ascadian Isles, and the Empire's will always became reality. Surreal reminders of its location abounded all the same, from the reptilian pack guars being guided down cobblestone streets to the graceful emperor parasols along the lakeshore. The reassuring mass of Fort Pelagiad stood at the center of it all, the Empire's ruby banner flying from each tower.

Trent guided them to a place called the Halfway Tavern, or more specifically, the field of tents being set up behind it in preparation for the Free Farmers Fair.

"Is there a reason we're standing in a manure-ridden field when a perfectly nice tavern is just a few steps away?" Daria asked.

"Because we're too real to stay in some phony tavern," Trent said with a chuckle. "Right, Jane?"

"If by too real you mean too poor, then yes," Jane said, her voice taut with frustration.

Trent looked briefly disappointed. "There won't be any spare rooms at the tavern, anyway. Most of the folks here are sleeping outdoors," he said, gesturing at the attendees setting up bedrolls and hammocks.

The Halfway Tavern had at least set up a few bathing tents. Daria used the women's, though the waters were already murky from previous bathers. She didn't feel much cleaner by the end, but she'd at least washed off the foyada's ash.

She'd be getting another dose of it on the way back.

Daria got dressed and returned to the fairground, which the Halfway's publican was using as an overflow parlor. Servers tramped through the mud carrying big wooden mugs full of frothy beer offered at prices much higher than reasonable. Trent and Jane sat on crates in the tavern's shadow, next to a tall and powerfully built young Imperial with long, flowing brown hair.

"Hey, this is Iesse," Trent said, pointing to the Imperial. "We work together sometimes."

Iesse raised a hand in greeting, his face placid. "Hey."

"Hi," Daria said.

Daria sat next to Jane, the hurt still visible on her face.

"Are you going to the shrine tomorrow?" Daria asked Jane, her own words sounding like they came from somewhere far away.

"Uh huh."

After that, nothing. Daria bought a beer from the server and drank without really tasting it. She didn't want to think about what waited for her in Balmora if things didn't work themselves out. Maybe she'd spend the rest of her life laboring at her mother's office, going slowly insane while Quinn rose up the ranks in some big guild or company.

They slept under the canvas of a big pavilion, the fly-ridden space filled with snores from peddlers, jugglers, and other visitors. Morning came, and Daria stepped outside to find Trent tuning his lute as a Breton herdsman guided a pack of guars through the fairground.

Maybe now would be a good time to do her mom's errand.

"Trent, I'm going to go to Fort Pelagiad to burn some incense."

Trent looked up from his strings. "Huh?"

"My mom thinks that if I burn incense to the god of law, it'll help her win a legal case. It's part of the great Imperial tradition of masking bribery as religious devotion."

"Oh." Trent went back to his lute.

"Uh, where's Jane?"

"Don't know."

"She still seems pretty mad."

"Nothing you can do about it, Daria. Let her have her space. She'll figure something out."

"Dammit, Trent!" came Jane's voice.

Daria looked to see her friend cutting through the crowd, the glum frustration replaced by hot anger. Trent put the instrument aside as if in resigned expectation.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"You told me I could get a ferry to the Shrine of Humility here!" Jane clenched her fists.

"I'm pretty sure you can."

"No, you can't! There's no ferry!"

He scratched his head. "But there are tons of boats."

"Yeah, tons of fishing boats!"

"Huh. I guess I assumed—"

Jane kept going. "And why the hell would people here have a ferry to a Dunmer shrine? How many Dunmer have you actually seen in Pelagiad besides us?"

Trent was silent for a moment. "I saw at least four, Janey."

"Well, unless those four decided to run and operate a ferry all on their own, I'm out of luck."

Daria spoke up. "Can you get one of the fishing boats to take you?"

"I tried. No one wants to go that far out of their way. One of them seemed interested but changed his mind once he found out where I was going. Didn't want to ruin his relationship with the Nine Divines by ferrying some filthy pagan like me." Her voice broke for a moment, then she swallowed and hung her head in defeat.

Trent didn't bother doing anything more than look uneasy. Daria thought back to Trent's cavalier attitude toward packing. She'd viewed it as confidence, but seeing him at that moment showed it as something else. He didn't know what the hell he was doing, and Jane had suffered that for years. This was another disappointment in a life full of them.

"Jane, you said one of the fishing boat captains was willing to travel?" Daria asked.

"Not if it's to help someone from the wrong religion."

"I'm part of his religion, at least nominally." Daria patted the incense pouch in her coat. "And I think I might know how to convince him."

Musical Closer - Illusions, by Cypress Hill (NSFW Lyrics)

I’m glad Jane didn’t remain silently simmering but opened up about hearing Daria’s errant comments the night before. Here's Daria's chance to defuse things. . . .

Oh for Mara’s sake, Daria! You just put your boot further into your mouth when the proper course would have been a humble apology and serious concern about hurting her friend’s feelings. Even Trent’s flagrant signals didn’t stay Daria’s recalcitrant tongue.

’Or was Daria the problem?’
Ya think?!?

What a curious town Pelagiad is. As you say, a piece of the Empire transplanted into Morrowind.

Hmm, the lack of a ferry to Jane’s target shrine just may be an opportunity for Daria to begin to mend things. As long as she can school her mouth. Nice optimistic end to this episode in that regard.

Oh boy! Tell someone their religion is a scam. That always works out well! Daria is about to learn a painful life lesson. Well, hopefully she will learn from this...

I always thought Pelagiad was weird too. It is so out of place compared to the rest of the land, that it just feels wrong. None of my characters ever spent much time there. They usually laired up in Balmora or Vivec City. I made little house mods in each city, and another one for Ald'Ruhn.

Trent might be too real to stay in a phony tavern, but I for one sure am not! Bring on the beds and bathtubs I say!

Well, maybe Daria can salvage something of her relationship with Jane with a liberal application of the right holy symbol.

Chapter 5

The docks of Pelagiad lay some distance away from the town proper. Small wooden boats, a few with sails but most without, bobbed amidst the segmented marshmerrow stalks growing thick and wild along the sandy shores.

"Which boat is it?" Daria asked.

"The little boat with the oversized sail," Jane said, pointing to a small vessel that looked like it might be carried aloft by a strong wind. "Boatman's name is Severius."

"Let's see if I can convince Severius to let us on that littoral mishap waiting to happen."

"Wait a minute. Why are you helping me, Daria? Is this some ploy to get back in my good graces?"

Daria almost said yes. It'd be easy to brush the whole thing off as a joke. But she didn't think Jane was in the mood for a joke.

"That's part of it. But I did some thinking, and honestly, I'm kind of impressed. Most of the religion I've seen is about doing a god a favor in hopes of getting a favor back, like what my mom expected me to do with this incense. Seeing you go so far out of your way just to say thanks to your god is kind of new to me. I won't pretend to believe that the Tribunal is for real. But I do think that what you're doing is for real. And it's not often I see that."

Jane took a moment to process the information. "Okay, veiled apology accepted."

"Thanks. I shouldn't have been so dismissive of you," Daria said.

"Yeah, you shouldn't have. But at least you're making up for it."

"Save your praise for if I actually talk the boatman into this. If Quinn were here, she'd have him around her finger in a minute, but I lack her charm, a fact that I've amply demonstrated several times on this journey."

"Charm's overrated. It gets creepy after a while, anyway."

"Then there's something we can agree on."

Severius was a wiry Imperial with steel-gray hair. He stood up from his deck as Daria and Jane approached, his gnarled face scrunching up in disapproval.

"I already told you I want no part of your pagan rituals!" he yelled.

"No one's asking you to participate in any pagan rituals," Daria said.

Severius looked her up and down for a moment, his expression distrustful. "You're an Imperial. What do you have to do with this?"

Daria took a deep breath and tried to imagine what Quinn would do. Comment on how nice the boat was? Say something cute about fisherman fashion? This was going to be harder than she thought.

"You object to taking my friend because you fear it would upset the Nine Divines, correct?" Daria asked.

"Aye. I won't help a false faith."

"Yet the Nine Divines and the Empire permit religious freedom."

He crossed his arms, and somehow managed to look flintier than before. "I don't know anything about that. But I know my gods are mine and that her gods aren't." He jabbed an index finger at Jane.

Daria re-calculated her approach. "You and I both honor the Nine Divines. What if I gave you something you could give to them as an offering?"

"Like what?"

Daria took the incense pouch out of her pack and opened it. She held it close, making sure he'd get a good whiff of the stuff. "This is incense from the holy gardens of the Imperial City. I was going to burn it on the altar to ensure that my business ventures stay successful. But I promised to help my friend. I propose that you take us to the Shrine of Humility. In return, I'll give you this incense so you can offer it to the Divine of your choosing and for whatever boon you need."

Severius mulled it over, his grimy fingers stroking his chin. "Hmm, from the Imperial City, you say?"

"Yes," Daria lied.

"I have been meaning to show my devotions. An offering to Zenithar might be what I need to turn things around." He looked out at the lake. "Very well. I won't take you directly to the shrine, but I'll take you near enough that you can walk the rest of the way. I'm still charging travel fare!"

"We'll need a ride back, as well," Daria said.

"I'll take you there and wait for you until the morning. Good fishing waters in the north lake, so I can make use of the time. But if you aren't back by then, I'm off."

Daria looked at Jane. "Okay with you?"

"Sure. I don't mind a bit of walking. You have everything you need?"

Daria had taken her pack in anticipation of this. "I think I do."

*********

The last and longest part of Daria's journey to Morrowind had been on a leaky sea cog dubbed The Princess Fairy. She remembered it as a nautical hell, utterly without privacy or quiet. Somehow, Severius's boat managed to be worse.

Her stomach lurched into her throat as a sudden gust tipped the boat to the side. She stifled her groan but pressed her arms against her gut to quell her growing nausea. A strong wind at least carried them quickly through the waters. It carried a storm as well, with ominous gray clouds following close behind them.

Severius pointed at the shore ahead. "That's where I'm letting you off. Go north, and you'll see the road to the shrine. Once you do, head east. You'll reach it before dark if you move quick."

"Thanks," Jane said. She seemed to be bearing the boat's rigors better than Daria.

Severius landed the boat a few feet from the lakeshore. Daria and Jane waded through the frigid, knee-deep waters and onto the beach, where tubular off-white mucksponges grew in profusion among the sand and reeds.

"We're not going to escape that storm," Jane said, looking back at the encroaching clouds.

"Of course we aren't. Nothing's gone right this entire trip. Why should they start going right now?"

"Always the optimist."

Daria walked alongside Jane as they treaded through the tall green grass. They reached the road minutes later and turned east, as Severius had said. To the north, green hills pressed up against the foyada's black volcanic ridge.

A question arose in Daria's mind. "Why did you stay with me and Trent at the fork in the road? Back when we first reached the Ascadian Isles?" she asked. "You could've gone east and already paid your respects by now."

"Guess I didn't feel like walking here on my own." She gave a joyless laugh. "It's like I said, Daria. I'm not very good at this whole Dunmer thing. I played it safe like an Imperial would. My faith's not that deep."

"Being practical doesn't mean your faith is any less."

"Maybe. Feels sort of like I'm selling out, though. Like if I really believed the gods had my back, I wouldn't worry about it so much." The sky darkened as she spoke, clouds shrouding the sun's light.

They walked in silence for a while. Fiercer winds picked up from the lake and hurled a few cold raindrops their way. Daria tightened her coat; its fabric a bit too thin for this sort of weather.

"Daria, I was thinking about what you said, with the temple being part of a corrupt system."

Daria stayed silent. She didn't want to withdraw the statement. Because it was true. Morrowind's system was corrupt. The Empire being equally corrupt didn't let Morrowind off the hook.

"Yeah?" she finally said.

"I agree with you! I mean, it's not like I can't see what goes on here. Morrowind's a really messed-up place. There's slavery, corruption, and the great houses are all terrible in different ways. And yeah, the Tribunal Temple is a part of that.

"But even if the temple isn't that great, I always felt like the gods were watching out for people like me. No one cared about the Dunmer. We always had to take care of ourselves. The Altmer, the Nords, and the Dwemer all persecuted us. And I get it. If the Dunmer gods were real, why would they let the Empire take over? Thing is, I think that maybe they wanted the Empire here to teach the Dunmer some humility. Remind us that we're not all that great, that we're not better than anyone else. That maybe there's room for some crazy mixed-up kid like me."

Raindrops fell faster as Jane spoke. The dirt road softened into mud beneath their feet, and Lake Amaya churned in the distance. Daria shivered and raised a hand to hold onto her glasses.

"Since you're being honest with me," Daria began, "I'll admit I'm not sure if gods are really gods. It seems to me that if the Nine Divines are all that powerful, then they have a responsibility to fix what's wrong in the world. From what I've seen, they're simply another tool that the rich use to get richer."

"Wow, really?"

"A few days ago, I'd have said I did believe. This journey got me thinking. But even if there aren't any gods, I respect what you're doing."

"You never felt any kind of holy presence?" Jane asked, raising her voice to be heard over the rain.

"No. Mom and Dad made me spend a lot of time in the temple back in Charach, but it all seemed like a lot of tedious rituals. You?"

Jane laughed. "Kind of. I'm not sure it actually happened, though."

"How do you mean?"

"This was when I was a kid, not long after we lost the old house. I'd been on the streets for a couple of days, and Trent dropped me off at the temple in Balmora. I didn't know where my brother went. I think I thought he'd gone off to join my parents, and I'd be stuck in Balmora by myself. There I was, maybe nine years old, cold and hungry and alone in a huge crowd of people who all smelled pretty awful and were really keen on weird music and chanting.

"They put us in this big room that had an ash drawing of the Tribunal gods, all three of them together. I knew who they were, but they looked like monsters to me. I kept wondering when the hell these priests were going to actually feed us.

"And that's when the image of Vivec moved his head and looked right at me. I heard his voice in my head. Something like: 'I know you're bored, Jane. I'll tell you a little secret: I find it pretty boring, myself. But they need the magic words to be happy, so I indulge them. Be kind to them, Jane. They can't always see the world the way you and I see it.' And he smiled—this bright smile like things would get better.

"Then he went back to being an image. But I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. A living god had reached out to me and told me I was okay. I know it's crazy. And there's a good chance I imagined the whole thing. But I still remember it as if it happened. I know that Vivec was a mortal who made himself a god so he could help the Dunmer. He helped me. And maybe someday I can be strong and help someone else who really needs me."

Daria took a moment to process all this. It had to be a dream or a hallucination. But who could blame her given those circumstances? She remembered Trent's comment: if Jane wasn't hurting anyone, why should Daria care what she believed?

"Does being strong for someone else entail you becoming a god?" Daria asked. She wasn't even sure if she was joking or not.

"Nah, becoming a god's too much effort. I'd rather win over a rich patron who likes my original art."

"That's quite an attitude to take to the Shrine of Humility."

"Hey, that just shows how badly I needed this pilgrimage! But don't worry; if I get what I want, I'll find a few worthy souls to share the wealth with." She looked at Daria. "Like you."

Daria smiled. "And Mom says I never network."

The rain intensified and the wind roared as the two girls kept walking toward the shrine. Rain streaked the lenses of Daria's glasses, and she tried to peer over the rims, but the world beyond was little more than a damp blur.

A strange and warbling sound pierced through the noise of the storm. It sounded like nothing Daria had ever heard, animalistic yet somehow suggestive of a more human rage. The cry repeated, louder than before.

"Did you hear that?" Jane asked, her voice taut.

"I wish I hadn't. What is it?" Daria asked.

"I think it's a nix hound."

Daria stopped in her tracks, suddenly conscious of how small and soft she really was in this strange land. She knew about nix hounds. Scavengers and opportunists, usually, but also known to attack travelers. Especially if the nix hounds were in a pack. "How many?"

"If it's only one, we might be able to scare it off," Jane said, stepping close to her friend. "If it's more than that..."

Still holding on to her glasses with one hand, Daria's grasped the handle of her father's sword with the other.

Musical Closer - Gone Away, by The Offspring

Ahh, love those wild marshmellow trees. You don't even have to put the marshmellows on a stick to cook them over the fire. They come on the sticks already! Oh wait, you meant marshmerrow? Erm, move along, nothing to see here citizen...

but I lack her charm, a fact that I've amply demonstrated several times on this journey."
Indeed you have. Though Daria's self awareness is in itself truly remarkable. I think that is one of things that makes her a character I can like. She knows that her own bullshit is bullshit. Well, eventually she does.

Uh oh, Daria is sailing on the infamous Nau Sea. Hopefully she will be able to keep her lunch inside her, rather than outside.

That is a really good memory that Jane has of Vivec. Whether it really happened or not, I can see where it would help her deal with the ugliness of everyday reality.

And there we have it. Just as I predicted, Daria is using this trip, journey, quest as an opportunity to network.

Uh oh, a Nix Hound. Maybe a player character like January or Blood Raven will come along to guard them on the way to the shrine?

In the previous episode, Daria was putting one foot in her mouth after another (good thing she only has two). Here, I was delighted to see that she had reconsidered her approach and that her speechcraft quite rose to the occasions. Talking the fisherman into ferry duty was good but her conversation with Jane really shined. With comments like this:
"Being practical doesn't mean your faith is any less."

I was glad to see Jane react positively as the two young ladies met halfway. Overall, perhaps this was all a good incident for now they are comfortably talking – as friends – about subjects where they may disagree. And they are listening to each other. This whole little saga of their argument over religion and its resolution was wonderfully crafted.

Uh-oh. A nix hound is not an overwhelming foe but, vs the unarmed Jane and rain-blinded bespectacled swordswoman Daria, it could be a tough fight if it comes to that.

Ah, I see. Makes sense. I like that you considered time as a factor. Now... where am I? Up to post 83. Cool. We're on the same page.

She goes to the library for solitude, mm hmm! Although the way you say it is more humorous-- "Nothing repelled the popular crowd quite like books."

Yeah I agree. Not just a Morrowind without Jane, but a story without Jane. I'm already endeared to her after the painting chapter.

Oh gosh, the part when Daria walks home and plays the out-of-tune lute... 😎 Laughing so hard I'm crying! ... It's like her story gets so despondent, but in a humorous way. Wow... Jane's really trying to pimp her bro to her best buddy!

Mom has Julianos candles!



Oh goddess!!! Man, this conversation at the dinner table is gold! ... Well hey, at least Daria got what she wanted. Looks like she's going to Pelagiad.

Yes, I can't see Daria wielding any kind of weapon. She should use her charms and wits instead. Make a bandit slap his knee or, but hey, maybe she can do it. Yeah, maybe she can. She seems to be considering dad's old sword.

Up to 90. Are they not talkng the silt strider? Yikes. Seems like they've got everything. Did Daria forget her green beetle hat though?

Why aren't they taking the strider? This is freaking me out. Why is Trent continuing to play? Aren't they worried about attracting cliff racers??? And if they're going to Pelagiad, why does it sound like they are nearer to the volcano???

Wow. Daria is getting attracted to Trent. Look'it this!

Aww. Poor Jane.