Archaeological despatch from postwar Skyrim

Dear Emiline,

I am grateful for your concern and prayers, but the dragon crisis has now ended and the situation with the rebellion seems to be all but resolved. As the dust settles, certain unsettling stories are emerging of other events that took place under the cover of the turmoil. You will know the rumours I am referring to.

I am reminded of an artefact sold to me by a prospector a few years ago. He claimed his dog sniffed it out in a cave east of Winterhold. It took the form of a slab of flat rock, with deep grooves a little like runes carved into the surface in a language I did not recognise. Some of the grooves were filled with compacted organic residue of different kinds, all with strong and distinct odours- this is evidently what attracted the hound's attention. On a hunch I had a cryptomancer provide a rough translation, but the text proved a challenge for her abilities and what she produced made little sense at the time. I filed the translation away and put the item in the vault, but recent events have forced me to reexamine her work with not a little disquiet.

I have transcribed the document for you below. Blessings of the Eight.

Ryhtnof

“…so it came to pass that the Moon-Fall-Scholar[?] lay dead upon the field, and we turned this way and that in lamentation. The North and South and East and West belonged to the interlopers, and the Sky belonged to our jealous cousins, so we sank like rain into the welcoming ground…

…the Kindly Ones soothed our grief. Their soft words and soft faces offered the promise of salvation, if we would only help them in their great undertaking. They desired to be as one mind and spirit with one another, and we were to be remade to prove such liberation was possible…

…and our sight was blotted out and we rejoiced, for we had no need of it. We had no need of writings after the interlopers had burned the Four Libraries and defecated in their fountains, and we had no need of beauty after the interlopers shattered the crystal sunwebs and despoiled the virgins of the high temple. In the last days of the Above many received madness through their eyes, light becoming a vector for sickness of the soul…

…but those of our kin most blessed grew hardened skin, and new ways of touching the world, and they could HEAR and SMELL one another like never before, and they were of one mind and one spirit. The Kindly Ones taught them their music, and they were their chorus. Not all of us were chosen for the final transformation, but…

…joy and song like we had never known, deep in the warm places…

…could not understand. They had been so generous toward us, but their enquiries had led them in other directions. “Failure”, they said, “Dead End”, they sighed. They did not understand what a miracle they had wrought. They had saved us from misery and loneliness, and we at last could repay…

…hissing, scalding warriors against us, but our love knew no fear and they were as rocks…

…perhaps our fault? It is a woeful thing to be abandoned by one’s gods and then by one’s brothers. Some said we should take up their burden. Perhaps if we found a way to complete the process, they would return and forgive us and the rumbling halls would once again…

…blessed brothers of the chorus took pity on us, and fed us, and we adorned ourselves with their shells in imitation…

…the interlopers endure in the upper world. Our hate has long since fled. We will teach them as we were taught, in the spirit of compassion…”