N’gasta! Defiler! Destroyer!

My Emperor,

Per your orders and given several sleepless days, Headmaster Viarmo of the Solitude Bard’s College ha>s successfully produced a manuscript, translated into modern Cyrodilic, of the text you desired. I am told that what follows is a rough translation only, and as you can see for yourself, several key phrases remain a mystery, due, according to the Headmaster, to the completely lack of a Cyrodilic > analog for those terms.

In any event, I believe that you will find, after reading this translation, that the potential us>age of necromancy on the scale suggested by the respected Aldmeri ambassador is impractical and, more importantly, beyond the limits of moral behavior and unfitting for a soldier of the Imperial Legion. If I may add a personal note, I strongly feel that if the Thalmor want so desperately to test their > magic on these rebels, they ought to come up here and do it themselves.

The Empire is Law; The Law is Sacred; Long Live the Empire.

Servius Tullius, General of the Imperial Legion, Solitude

5^th of Last Seed, 4E 200

(I am) N’gasta! Defiler! Destroyer! Never since the Dawn (or the Dusk) has such a feat been achieved. Mortal flesh-pods (?) seem unable (or) unwilling to maintain the bonds between soul and flesh beyond grave injury, a fact which every child of tusxas (no identifiable analog; perhaps “tusxas” is a name?) knows dearly in his Heart. The art of Un-Death is and always has been the primary passion of (our) great people, focused on the bending of nature to allow PLEJ (unknown, but Ehlnofey in origin; capitalized in some manuscripts, lowercase in others) to take hold on the material and the spiritual.

Yet now, the Defiled (a name of my own invention) have been born/e (interchangeable) of Slime and of Sand for the first time in this Time. Defile! Defeat! Great darkness seeps from the cracked skin of (these) delightful abominations, who are born/e of every species, from the Merish sorts to the goblins they keep (as) pets. All sacrificed on the proper alters and drained of blood, and all kept alive ahkstas (“artificially”?) so that their souls may know anguish. Alifsonke (possibly “A’fsunke or “the fsun”, an Old Ehlnofex term for crude but effective soul entrapment technologies, the precursors to modern soul gems) is readied and kept in close physical proximity to the live-corpses so that the souls may not wander too far. They are harvested, reanimated as one, and sent forward until (they) fall.

And by S’loathk (?), do my beautiful Defilers never fall. They may lose limbs, eyes, ears, tongues, or they may yet be burned alive or frozen, but still they stand. Each corpse they claim is added to the throng, a meat-sack ready and ripe for harvest. I am only just beginning.

Tullius, this is some very dangerous and dark reading you’ve found. What little I can dig up on this N’gasta fellow comes from the Ballad of Cyrus, a Redguard song dating back to the days of Tiber Septim himself. Supposedly, the protagonist fought and slew a “great slug” called N’gasta during his travels, and the creature greatly resembles what, to my knowledge, must be a Sload. Necromancy, this “art of un-death”, was certainly part of that creature’s tale. But of most interest to me is the apparent Ehlnofey influence in the text, though it’s scattered; I’d love a chance to hold on to a copy of my own for a while, if you don’t mind.

—Viarmo {.afterword}