Report of Imperial Intelligence on the Vigil of Stendarr, 4E211

TOP SECRET//HUMINT//SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED-GLASS TAPROOT//NOTHALMOR

3 Last Seed, 4E211

High Queen, the following report is an account of a meeting of the Vigil of Stendarr concerning the genesis of an endeavor whose objective is to kill the Daedric princes. While this endeavor is seemingly preposterous on its face, any serious attempt by the Vigilants to pursue this project will have a direct impact on the objectives of GLASS TAPROOT. Frankly it is not at all clear to me whether this effort of the Vigilants should be suppressed, clandestinely supported, or watchfully left to its own devices. It is, however, very clear that staying abreast of any new developments is potentially of crucial importance to our own goals.

The author is a Nord member of the Vigilants who happens to be sympathetic toward the Empire and has been a willing intelligence asset with a corroborated record of reliability, excellent access within the Vigilants, and who responds well to tasking. The author submitted this account on request from an Imperial field agent assigned to the area. Neither party is read into GLASS TAPROOT. The raw text of the report follows.

26 Sun’s Height, 4E211

Stendar’s mercy be upon you, [REDACTED]. I continue to be astonished at the uproar among the Vigilants over the events of our last gathering. Our friend and brother, the Breton named Alfdyn Ashsmith, is an unusual man even by the standards of our Vigil which practices something as paradoxical as (forgive me) unmercifully exterminating the unmerciful. He is a reserved man of deep knowledge and a tendency to disappear without explanation for months at a time before returning with some new scars and the head of some evil cult master in a burlap sack. He had been gone for some time until three days ago just before dusk, he walked in wordlessly, strode to the front of the room, dropped a wet and still-beating Daedra heart on the table in front of him. The room fell silent, and he spoke, quoting a familiar text.

“‘As part of the divine contract of creation, the Aedra can be killed. Witness Lorkhan and the moons. The protean Daedra, for whom the rules do not apply, can only be banished.’ We all know these lines, but I tell you they are false. Daedra can be killed. Daedric princes can be killed. The bodies of eight of them hang lifeless in the night sky above our heads at this moment.

The still-startled audience was uncomfortably silent as they tried to figure out whether this was either flat blasphemy, a deliberate attempt shock everyone into paying attention, or some kind of mystic metaphor. He did have a reputation for unorthodoxy, but we would not hold that against anyone with such a record of bold victories in dark places. He continued.

“The eight divines are Daedric princes, and the Daedric princes are divines themselves. They…”

My friend Neils Trollsbane lept to his feet, face red and hand instinctively gripping for his broadsword. Alfdyn motioned to him with palms outstretched, “Hold, my friend. I neither deny Talos nor blaspheme the gods. I want to provoke your mind, not your fighting spirit. Not yet.” Neils sat, still red-faced. I was angry myself, but I knew Afldyn well enough for my curiosity to prickle as well. He continued.

“The Aedra are thus called in the Mer tongues because of their status as ancestors. We tend to see things differently, but they are nonetheless our own ancestors in that they are responsible for our world and all the lives in it. They willingly died for creation, though they still live on in some sense both in the continued existence of Mundus and through more mystical features of our world seen in various times and places such as the end of the Oblivion Crisis and, in my opinion, the late recent business involving the dragons. The Daedra did none of this. They did not die for this world, and they are alive in the literal sense. In every version of the creation story of this world, the distinction between the Aedra and the Daedra is not their nature but in their actions. The Aedra chose to die; the Daedra chose to live. These choices are the only difference between the Aedra and Daedra. They are both et’Ata who separated only by the choices they made during the Dawn Era.”

“The Daedric Princes cause us no end of horror, and we can never be rid of them – unless we cause them to be killed. I should not say ‘unless we kill them’; this is impossible. The et’Ada can only die of their own volition, but if they so will it, they die.”

“Consider also the fact that the et’Ada can be tricked. Most versions of the Monomyth testify to many of the et’Ada being tricked and fleeing the new creation. The Daedric princes are equally fallible. They conspire against each other and succeed. Their purposes can be thwarted on occasion by ordinary mortals.” He smiled a bit. “Like us. The story of Azura and the Box provides some insight into this matter. In short, the Daedra can kill themselves is they chose choose, and they can be misled into making choices against their own interests. If we can arrange such choices…”

Here a general rumbling began in the assembled audience. Now I am not a master of the arcane arts. My Nord blood leads me to believe that no lock, however artfully contrived, is immune to being picked with a sufficiently large hammer. But I gave voice to the first objection I could think of.

I asked, “Azura and the Box is just a story. And if it weren’t, what do you expect us to do? Write ‘by opening this box you agree to kill yourself’ and hand it to Azura?”

“No,” he said with a raised eyebrow, “Azura is basically harmless. We’d go after one of the dangerous ones.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” I growled.

“I know. Obviously the method of actually accomplishing such a feat would be among the most subtle questions ever contemplated by mortal beings. If it were easy, the Daedric Princes would have been dead long ago. By each other’s hands, most likely. And to answer what should be your next question, yes, a dead Daedra would only be as dead as the Divines, which is to say, not all that dead. Our world contains love and beauty despite the fact that Mara is not physically present among us. A Mundus with a dead Boethiah would still contain murder, treason, and lies. But those horrors would not have an immortal champion with his own sphere of omnipotence.”

Another Vigilant interrupted impatiently, “And have you answered that subtle question, or are you wasting our time?”

Alfdyn closed his eyes for a moment. The air of the room suddenly seemed very cold and still. He spoke.

“The beating heart I have placed before you belongs to an unbound Dremora who is, as it happens, quite alive but somewhat ironically for him bound by chains in a cave just inside the northern border of Elsweyr. I will not bore you with the details yet. The long and short of it is that through alchemy, brutality, and subterfuge, I have made him believe that he can escape by using a nasty piece of alteration magic I have given him. He doesn’t understand it well enough to fully know what will happen, but he understands it enough to know how to perform the ritual. At sunset this very day, it will cause him to become the Earthbones of his own corpse – if it works.”

“I have not successfully performed this act before. But if it does work, the heart in front of you will stop beating at sunset. His corpse will remain in that cave for you to inspect if you remain doubtful. It is a crude first effort and has no chance whatsoever of working against one of the Princes, but as a proof-of-concept it would still be the effective death of a Daedra, a heretofore unrealized first step toward victory. We have about two hours before we find out.”

The intensity on his face diminished and he suddenly looked very tired. “You know what? I’m going to leave you to argue about this. I’m going to the tavern. One of you come tell me how it turns out.”

He strode out and the room erupted into furious arguments. Over the next two hours we decided that if he was right, we would follow his plan without reservations. If he was wrong, we would wish him well and politely but firmly suggest he was better off pursuing his delusions outside the auspices of the Vigil.

But I tell you the moment the sun slipped below the horizon that heart stopped.

Here ends the report. It it still quite new and has not yet been analyzed within GLASS TAPROOT. However, I do have a few preliminary observations. First, Alfdyn Ashsmith is known to imperial intelligence though only in a one-page file which characterizes him as a Vigilant, an adventurer, and a skillful though not exceptional mage. He has not been politically active. Therefore if he has done what is being claimed, it is likely through sheer determination and luck rather than outside intervention.

We are attempting to determine the location of the referenced cave. The author of the report is available for recontact, and may be able to provide the location. If so, we will establish a requirement in ordinary Imperial intelligence channels for the cave to be investigated.

Finally, the willingness of the Vigil to undergo such a potentially dangerous task is particularly noteworthy in light of the decimation of the organization in 4E201. As an organization, they very likely consider the success of their endeavor to be reasonably plausible.

As always, please feel free to contact me with questions or instructions.

I remain your obedient servant,

#460918