Neil's Elder Scrolls Saga

Dear Friend Maurivar,

      I write you now as a free man from the farthest reaches of the Empire. I sit here in the establishment of a sympathetic Altmer named Arrille. He can see by the stunned look on my face that my visit to the Vvardenfell district of Morrowind was not something I chose. He heard that a boat with Imperial guardsmen unloaded three men in rags onto the docks here in Seyda Neen this morning, so he is kind enough not to ask any questions about where I came from and why I'm here. How many boat-loads of prisoners does the Empire dump on this hellish island? And why did my boat contain only three prisoners? I'll spare you my thoughts on these questions, since there are much greater details that I want to write to you about. I am convinced that our journey here was much more than it seemed.
      My stay in the Cheydinhal dungeon was short. Only three days after I wrote my letter to you there, I was shackled and taken out of the dungeon, led by two guards. They would only answer my questions by telling me that I would be going on a long journey. If they knew more, they weren't willing to tell me. I'm sure they knew I was bound for Morrowind, and didn't want to dishearten me by telling me so. No one with any sense would choose to come here.
      Outside the city walls, we were met by the same captain with whom I fought on my previous journey. He barely gave me any attention, as if our earlier battle was forgotten. Instead, he was paying close attention to one of two guarded carriages. They were unloading a prisoner and putting him into the same carriage I had taken from County Skingrad to Cheydinhal. All eyes were on him, but not out of fear, but of curiosity. Was this a famous man who I had not heard of? I didn't recognize him. Who was this prisoner who deserved such great care and attention? I still don't know the answer, but I wish I never shared that journey with him.
      After he was secured within the carriage, I was led inside and placed opposite him. Like him, my feet and hands were shackled to a bench. We would sit facing each other, out of reach and barely able to move. Some words were exchanged between the guards outside, and the captain who I suspect is an agent of the Emperor handed some papers to the one who would lead our journey. With that, our caravan began our journey east through the Valus Mountains and into mainland Morrowind. The Emperor's agent did not come with us. I was never able to find out anything about the guards who were responsible for our transport.
      Of my companion in the carriage, I was not able to learn much either. We spoke little. I did not want to talk about why I was a prisoner, and he seemed to feel the same about himself. The guards were always near, so I did not think it was wise to talk about my father, Geldall Septim. Besides, my companion seemed despondent and uninterested in conversation. From what little conversation we had, I learned that he had been in the Imperial City's prison. He was never told how long he would be jailed, and like myself, he didn't understand where we were going. Perhaps our crime was the same: telling truths about the Imperial family. Morrowind may be our death sentence.
      A trip by carriage through the mountains is not the best idea the Empire ever had. The guards outside swore to both the Divines and the Daedra as they fought to keep the carriage moving. Some of them were magic-users who were able to lift the carriage over especially difficult terrain, but were clearly not powerful enough to keep the carriage afloat for the entire journey. The jarring of the carriage caused my wrists and ankles to chafe on the shackles, and my body was bruised and sore. My sullen companion did not seem to care. I yelled to the guards offering to walk outside at sword-point if necessary, but they insisted that the carriage was my only option. My feats in the arenas had made quite an impression, no doubt, but what did they know about my companion that made him so dangerous?
      The first night of our journey was the first time I suspected something was strange about him, although I now have a different opinion. He was asleep before we even stopped to make camp, although I can't see how he could have slept through the halting, jarring motion of the carriage. He and I slept in shackles where we were, him much more soundly than me. Without being able to lay down on the bench, I found it hard to fall asleep. But finally I did, although not for long. The first time I woke, I felt something brushing against my arms. It was soft and moved slowly, a gentle stroke of cloth. It was completely dark, with only the sounds of insects outside. I waved my hands about in a panic, as much as the chains would allow. I found nothing. I called out to whoever was in the carriage. The other prisoner did not respond, and the doors were closed. I determined as best as I could that I was alone on my bench. In time, my eyes adjusted enough to see the stars outside. The moons did not shed any light into the carriage. Convinced that it was just a dream, I managed to fall back to sleep a short while later.
      Again, I woke with a start. This time, I felt that my neck and head were wrapped in loose strands of wool string. Terror struck me and I began to yell. Something was wrapping my head in string, trying to smother me, I was sure of it! Whether it was one long strand or many, I don't know. I shook my head violently to try to shake off the strings, pushing them out of my mouth with my tongue, pulling at the strands with my teeth. I lowered my head down to where my chained hands could reach, but felt nothing, and suddenly the attack was gone. The guards had opened the door by that time, responding to my shouts, and brought a torch in to see me behaving like a lunatic. There was no string to be found anywhere, and my companion in the carriage was still asleep, or so he seemed. I told the guard that something had attacked me. I suggested that a spider might have been weaving a web around me, although I knew it could not explain what had happened. The real story would not have helped my cause. The mountains are home to all kinds of beasts, so giant spiders who capture sleeping men in webs might have been more believable than evil wizards who attack with string, or that my sleeping companion had attacked me.
      The guard looked around with his torch but saw nothing. One of the mages used sorcery to inspect the area for life, but she found nothing of interest. It was probably a trick of mine to escape the carriage, they guessed. With that, the carriage was shut again and I was left awake for the rest of the night, my eyes fixed on the other prisoner. He never woke or made a sound until our food was served in the morning. While eating, I asked him how he slept. He said he slept well, and offered nothing more. I told him nothing of the events of my night.
      We crossed into the province of Morrowind that morning, and began to descend from the mountains. The beautiful forests of Cyrodiil were gone, and the sky to the north had a strange brown colour to it. I know now that it was probably the ash that has been spewing from the Red Mountain volcano at the heart of Vvardenfell. However, I had never seen anything like it before. It scared me like the terrors of the previous night. The odd man across from me was sleeping again, so I could not ask him if he also saw the brown sky. I thought that his sleeping was connected to these strange things I was experiencing. Were his dreams causing the sky to turn brown? Fear gripped me in that carriage for the remainder of the journey. The sky can be explained with a mundane explanation, but the events of the following night have no simple answer.
      We camped at night just as we had the previous day. Again, the other prisoner slept deeply, while I sat in fear of him and what might happen that night, as I was right to do. Having not slept much the night before, I was exhausted, so sleep finally took me despite my efforts to stay awake. But I swear that something more than sleep took me.
      I woke with a start, just as the night before, and realized that the carriage was moving. This time there was a faint light in the carriage, enough for me to see that I was alone and unshackled. It appeared that my companion had freed himself and left, while I sat unshackled and confused. The carriage felt like it was moving over a smooth, level surface. I heard footsteps outside, so went to the door to look out and ask what was happening. I saw no one outside, and could not speak as terror took hold of me. I swear to you, Maurivar, that I was no longer in Morrowind! We traveled in the night itself, in the blackness of the sky. The darkness was thick and pressed like a weight around me. I did not recognize the constellations of the stars, which shone more brightly than in the night sky we are familiar with. The carriage and I were lost, adrift in this blackness. I did not see the moons or the ground, yet felt as if the carriage were rolling along a hard surface.
      I looked outside the door as best I could to see the source of the footsteps, but could see no one. I was still too terrified to call out. The footsteps did not belong to the guards, so I was afraid to learn who they belonged to, and where they were taking me. We were on some secret road through the night. I imagined this was one of the Emperor's secret paths, from knowledge gained in past centuries, and that I had been banished to some prison realm where all enemies of the Empire go. No answer seemed too unreasonable at the time.
      The vastness of black space smothered me. I could barely comprehend it. We might have fallen off the road and tumbled into that nothingness. The beings leading the caravan might have abandoned me there on the road through the void. My heart pounded loudly in my chest, and my only thought was panic.
      Minutes passed like hours. The carriage maintained its speed, and the rhythm of the footsteps was constant. I felt that this would go on for all time if I did not take action. With a trembling hand, I tried the handle of the door and found it unlocked. I opened it, revealing an eternity of blackness and stars. All outside was night sky, and I think I lost my mind for some time. I recoiled from the open doorway, throwing myself back against the opposite wall of the carriage. My gaze was fixed on the void outside.
      When I regained my composure, I found myself curled on the floor of the carriage, my throat sore and my mouth dry. I had been screaming frantically, the door of the carriage open wide. I was fighting a compulsion to leap out of the carriage into the night sky. The void seemed to be calling me into it.
      I don't know how long it took me to reach outside and pull the door shut. It allowed me to look beneath the wheels of the carriage, and see that there was indeed ground on this nightmarish sky road. To the side of the road, it seemed that the stars rippled, as if the road was lined with water. Whatever it was, I became more calm. Seeing the road made me feel that reality had not entirely abandoned me. I sat on my bench and chose not to look outside again. I even wrapped the shackles around my wrists and ankles, wishing that I had the locks to lock them so that if the compulsion to jump into the eternal blackness should take me again, I would not be able to move.
      However, seeing the empty bench across from me was almost as oppressive as the endless black space outside. I imagined that I was not alone in the carriage, that my companion was still there sleeping, and that he had put me in this waking nightmare, or pulled me into his. But I was wrong, and now I'm sure that he had nothing to do with these visions. He may have been suffering from nightmares of his own, but at the time I considered him to be the villain.
      These last moments of the experience are hardest to describe, but I need to try to explain it to you, Maurivar. I hope that you believe me, and that nothing so strange happens to you on your journey to Vvardenfell, if you get this letter and decide to join me.
      While sitting in the carriage alone, waiting for the journey to end, I became aware that someone was outside the carriage door. It was not visible through the bars, but I knew it was there, keeping pace with our progress towards an unknown destination. Suddenly I saw some objects pass by the window as we travelled. I thought they might be trees, but saw that they were in fact large mushrooms. I know that Vvardenfell has such giant vegetation, so it seems easy to explain. But I swear that we were not in Morrowind, nor in our world at all, for this entire encounter. Mushrooms, and then mountains. The carriage stopped, and a man's voice spoke to me through the bars. "Ah, you're here. Or rather, you're not here at all! Don't misunderstand: you're where you need to be, so I'm right when I say that you will be here, so you might as well already be here. I hate waiting, don't you? Now, don't be late!" At this point, I muttered agreement, and the two of us laughed together. I waited patiently for him to say more, feeling calm and unafraid, but must have fallen asleep before anything else happened. Or perhaps I just don't remember what else was said, which is a more worrying thought.
      I have never been a worshipper of either the Divine or the Daedra, but this experience has left me shaken and more aware of the immortal influences in our lives. Those who live above us, it seems, may occasionally pull us into their realms while we sleep, or while we are awake, if that was the case. This was the work of the Daedra, I'm sure. No Divine being would go to such lengths to terrify a mortal. I saw Oblivion that night, and I fear that I agreed to some compact with the Daedra. You are an educated man, Maurivar, so I need your advice on such matters. What do you know of contact with the Daedra? Are there documented cases of such uninvited communications with them, or is it necessary that I somehow initiated the dialogue? I feel that this was a real experience, not a dream, although it may have happened while I slept. How do mortals travel to Oblivion, and how can the Daedra force mortals to travel in the manner I describe? Daedra worshippers can be found throughout Morrowind, I have heard, so perhaps these worshippers induced this episode. What plots do the Daedric cults carry out for their masters? I look forward to discussing this with you when we meet.
      At noon of the next day, we found ourselves at the water between the mainland and the island Vvardenfell. We were loaded into the belly of a boat, where we were joined by a third prisoner, who introduced himself as Jiub. I introduced myself, while my companion ignored the pleasantries and lay down in a hammock. I was relieved that there was no way to see outside, as I was in no hurry to see the night sky again.
      The boat travelled through the night in a raging thunderstorm. Jiub and I stayed awake, while our withdrawn companion slept deeply, but not calmly like previous nights. He tossed and turned, his sleep tormented by some unseen intruder. I again felt the vastness of the night sky all around us. It's possible that I was still shaken from my experience of the previous night, but I felt that our boat touched the stars, or the blackness between them, like the carriage had the night before. Jiub and I witnessed nothing strange, but the sleeping man was troubled.
      The storm ended and we reached dock here in Seyda Neen. I needed to see daylight again, as I had been fighting growing panic as the night wore on. I needed to see that the world still existed outside. The guards opened the hatch to let us off. Jiub was busy trying to wake the sleeping prisoner, so I was the first to depart. I have been given a sealed package and instructions to meet a man named Caius Cosades, in a place called Balmora. Apparently I'm a free man here. My crimes have been dropped, my name cleared, and I'm free to go. It will be interesting to see how this Cosades man fits into my freedom. I shall deliver this package to him and then see where freedom leads me. I will return to Seyda Neen soon to see if you have arrived.
      Why should I not just return to Cyrodiil, you must wonder? I sit here in the tradehouse with the same question. Seyda Neen is a miserable swamp town, and the surrounding wilderness is strange and uninhabited. The locals tell me that the rest of the island is no better. Mud flats, volcanic ashlands, grasslands inhabited by primitive dark elves, and the famous mushroom forests. The Empire has not made much progress at establishing proper civilization here. I will miss the crowds of the arenas, the markets of the Empire's great cities, and the other fine things that free men of the Empire enjoy.
      But the Empire has sent me a clear message: I'm a free man, as long as I'm in Vvardenfell, away from civilized people. The dark elves care nothing for the Imperial family, so I can say whatever I want about Geldall Septim. They say much worse things about the Empire, I'm sure.
      I will stay in Morrowind for a while, and see what opportunities free men might find here. In a sense, I disappeared from the world in Cheydinhal. I went into that dungeon and was lost, as the Emperor wanted. If he needs to find me, his secret prince, he knows that I will be here. He could have had me killed, but deemed it better to keep me in secret on this damned island.
      In truth, there is a second reason I choose to stay here: the man who spoke to me on the sky road said that I was where I needed to be. He was a comforting presence, although I suspect he was not a mortal. Don't take this to mean that I am now a Daedra worshiper. Those who have been off of this world need not worship the Daedra in order to speak with them. But I am presuming too much.
      You are more knowledgeable than I, so I look forward to talking to you again. Safe journeys, Maurivar.

~ Oberyn