Declassified Documents Concerning the Final Days of the Royal Imperial Mananauts

The following is my first entry in an ongoing Elder Scrolls story I am writing. I am releasing the parts here and in some other places sequentially, each release being another diary entry. It takes place at the very beginning on the 2nd era, and deals with the events leading to the final closure of the Royal Imperial Mananauts of the Reman Dynasty. The story will be lore-heavy and deal with the (of my conception) circumstances leading to the eventual dissolution of the Mananauts.

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From the journals of Julius Corretus, Captain in the Imperial Legions, member of the Special Guard to the Potentate Versidue-Shaie, kept in perpetuity by the order of the Blades, as transcribed by Blacklight, in accordance with the wishes of the Imperial Throne, until such time as the content of these journals is deemed acceptable for public consumption.

3 Frostfall, 2E 1

This morning I awoke from another nightmare.

It played out like a battle I once fought, in the swamps of southwestern Morrowind. It was night, long after the sun had set, and the moons were high and full. A crisp breeze of the Last Seed shook through the air. Almost a year had passed but, as was the case with so many battles towards the end of the war, I have never forgotten. I knew the course of the battle well. Although the Dark Elves knew the land, my cohort had, weeks prior, freed a number of Argonians slaves from a Dres slave-pen. Two dozen of the more capable slaves agreed to disperse themselves among our group so that we might make use of their knowledge of the area and their ability to conduct important scouting missions that their philology allowed them. These Argonians were vital for our cohort’s string of victories towards the end of the war. While many of our comrades in the north were less successful, we had a much higher rate of success; had it not been for the death of the Emperor (may he rest in peace) it may have been possible that we would have eventually won the war.

In the real battle, our forces had won, although it was hard-fought. My cohort had been pushing strongly northeast for many weeks and the forces of the slavemasters of Dres had been getting desperate. This front was not considered strategically important by either side and, as a result, the Dres received little help from the other Dunmer Great Houses, nor from their living god-kings.

In this particular battle, we had emerged at a relatively dry and open clearing in the middle of the swamp. The moons were quite clear, their brightness illuminated the field. The Dres were particularly desperate and crazed and engaged us not just by sword but with magic as well. Due to their need elsewhere, we had few battlemages among us, but what we had were advantages in number and equipment. The magic of the Dres spellswords relied heavily on poison, which again allowed us to make use of the Argonians. Their immunity to poison, as well as their ability to quickly synthesize cures, allowed us to eventually claim victory. The dream at first played out as that battle had. However, as I came to the point where the Dark Elves surrendered, everything changed. There was a strange shrieking, something horrifying and unworldly. After a few moments I noticed the light shining on the field becoming more intense. I looked up quickly to catch of glimpse of Secunda growing larger, spiraling towards the surface.

As the moon crashed upon us, I was awoken.

I am convinced that this dream was nothing more than stress-related. My tenure as Chief Security Officer with the Royal Order of the Imperial Mananauts starts today and I am still unsure as what to expect. In regards to the organization I, like most of the citizens of the Empire, know very little. Much is kept secret, and posses nothing but unreliable rumors and wild speculation. I have heard stories that the Mananauts have ventured everywhere, from the realms of Oblivion, to Atherius, and even to places unknown. What I was told specifically was that I was to maintain order at the only current operation, that being the organization’s base on Secunda. The very idea of a permanent settlement on one of the moons, of all places, seems entirely too fantastical to be true, but then again so did the stories of giant stilt-striders and floating netches, until I saw them for myself in Morrowind. I am determined to keep an open mind, after all, I was given this position directly by the Potentate himself. The Akaviri is not one to joke and in his letter he made sure to outline how important this appointment is to the Empire. Obstinately, my success in the Four-Score War is what allowed me to be chosen for this position. The assigned task, however, is still quite unclear to me.

Why would it be necessary for someone who’s only proven use is in combat to accompany a scholarly and technical expedition? I was told to meet a handler that was to escort me to the staging area at the inn I had been staying at, at exactly midday. I was told to look for a young Redguard, no more than 30, wearing what was described to me as armor “resembling a light diving suit without the helmet”. I was told it would be hard to miss, that the armor would be prominently colored a lime green, and the likelihood of me confusing him with anyone else was nonexistent. When I walked down to the tavern at noon, I spotted him sitting at a table alone immediately, very hard to miss.

“Are you Josiah?” I said to him, taking the seat across from him

“Yeah, you Captain Corretus?” He said, simultaneously getting up from the seat, as I was sitting

“Yes, I was supposed to…” I responded

“We need to get going” He said “We’re going to be late if we waste time with small talk.”

He said nothing else, just motioned me to follow. He seemed terse with me for some reason, though I could see no reason why.

“So, what do you do with the mananauts?” I asked “I’m the deputy security officer.” He responded flatly “I’ve been running things since the last chief died.”

No one had informed me my predecessor had died. His attitude became a bit clearer. Perhaps he was still affected by that last chief’s death or maybe he was angry that he was overlooked for promotion, and seeing me opened up bitter feelings? It seemed strange to me that they would not promote the more experienced member of the expedition and instead bring in someone from the cold. Maybe it was because he was a Redguard. His accent made it clear he was certainly born in Hammerfell.

“This may seem strange but I don’t actually know what my job is supposed to be. Having a security officer attached to a scholarly mission seems…”

“Look, we can’t talk about that out on the street like this. Everything will be explained to you when we get where we’re going, ok?”

We did not talk to the rest of the way. We turned the corner of the street, where a carriage was waiting for us, that took us to a fairly large wooden building in less bustling part of the Imperial City. As we got off, Josiah produced a key which he used to unlock the door to the building as he ushered me in.

We entered through the front door to reveal hundreds of packed crates. This building seemed to be nothing more than a storehouse, although quite a bit small for a storehouse.

I looked up at Josiah with a question look on my face.

“This building is actually used to store surplus legion equipment. It’s not entirely a front, just mostly. The real staging ground for the Mananauts is located underground.” he stated blandly, continuing you motion to me to follow.

I was lead to one of the larger boxes in the middle of the room. It was just large enough for a man to fit into and before I even saw him reach for the other key I knew what to expect. Obviously this box was fake, a door to the lower level and indeed, my suspicions were correct. Josiah inserted the key into a padlock located on the crate to reveal that one of the sides of the crate swung open like a door, revealing a winding stairwell illuminated by a series lit torches that lead into the ground. I followed him down the stairs for a while. We descended in silence. Finally, we reached another wooden door, requiring yet another key.

“It’s best not to question what you see. It might not make any sense to you but it does work.”

As the door, I was greeted with a large chamber, far larger than the upstairs storehouse. The walls were made up of polished stone and the floor of smooth gray tiling. Crates, like those from upstairs, were pushed up against the sides and stacked on top of each other, pushed away to make room for what lied in the center.

In the center of the room stood, simply, a large steel box.

It was the size of a cottage that one might find in the Colovian countryside, something on the Gold Road to Anvil. The outside was covered in rivets, with no openings other than a hatch at the top, with a ladder bolted to the side leading up to it.

“Is that the ship?”

“Sure is. You were expecting something else weren’t you? Maybe something that looked like a bird with wings or maybe made of brass and covered in Dwarf glyphs?”

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but yes, that does sound more of what I was thinking. I wasn’t expecting it to be underground either.” “Seems odd right? We’re going to the moon in a metal box that’s underground.”

“I’ve seen drawings of the Sun Birds before, I’ve seen Dwarven diagrams of strange machines, I just expected…”

“Like I said, don’t question it. It works, that’s all you need to know. I’ve ridden in this thing dozens of times.”

I noticed the hatch swivel open as two men in similar armor to Josiah exited. One remained on the roof while the other climbed down the ladder. He strode past and turned his head to Josiah as he walked towards one of the walls.

“We have two more crates to load, sir.”

“You two grab one and, once that’s in, start preparing for launch. We will bring the other one with us.”

I motioned to the man.

“Captain Julius Corretus, pleasure to meet you.”

“Sir, my name is Marcus Fenius, an honor to meet you.”

Josiah moved away.

"This is our new Security Chief. Anyway, just get ready, we’re leaving in ten.”

Marcus made his way to one of the walls and grabbed the crate, balancing it on his shoulders as he walked back to the ship. The other still standing at the top of the ladder waved to me.

“Sir, Raymond Centus.”

I waved.

Marcus handed Raymond the crate up the ladder, as Raymond proceeded to bring it back in through the hatch, Josiah motioned to me.

“Help me with this last one, it’s pretty important, since it has your suit in it.” I followed him over to the crate he pointed to as we each grabbed a side.

“What exactly are these suits for anyway?”

“Not really sure, the director explained it to me once. Something about thin layers of creatia on Secunda. The suit like, sustains something or other…I didn’t really get it. You can ask him once we get there. It’s important you keep it on outside the base though. We’ve had guys go out without them and it was a real mess to clean up.”

Josiah climbed up the ladder first as I, still clutching one end, followed him. He grabbed the crate from me as he walked down first. I followed as soon as it looked like he cleared the entry. We immediately entered a small room, not big enough for more than six people, bounded by two steel hatched doors on either side. Josiah placed the box down as he climbed back up the ladder after me and sealed the hatch.

“You don’t have to put the suit no now if you don’t want, but we generally keep them on when on the ship. It’s a safety precaution, in case there’s a breech or something. I’ll have one of the guys take it to your quarters for later.”

“Quarters? How long does the trip take normally?”

“About a day. It’s hard to tell when there’s no light inside, but we try to keep clocks around so we know when to sleep. Not that it makes it normal. No one’s really gotten used to it; except the pilot I guess.” He motioned to one of the two doors.

“I’ll introduce you to him and he can tell you how the ship works, if you’re into that. I never really understood it. Just trust me when I say it gets weirder. Besides that, there’s not much on here. This is our only ship right now, since the Potentate had the others scrapped. This was one of the smaller ones so there’s only room for a dozen people, maximum, and not much else. Just the pilot’s chamber, crew quarters, some storage rooms and a really small common room where we keep the food.”

He unlatched the door, swinging it open as I followed him through. For what I saw, weird would be an understatement.

In my time in the legion, I was known as a bit of a book worm, at least compared to be most legionaries. Before being sent to the front in Morrowind, I decided to avail myself with the region’s history, hoping it would aid me in the campaign. Luckily for me, the Imperial City had, at that point, contained many impressive libraries, with many rare and interesting books. I learned much about Morrowind, including much about the Dwarves. When I had been told of my new assignment, my imagination, fueled by all the fantastic diagrams and descriptions I had read about, speculated wildly about the possible construction of this ship. I had assumed that any advanced technology, such as the ships of the Mananauts, must necessarily be built from, or in mimicry of, the great Dwarven constructions. When I heard “pilot’s chamber”, I had assumed I would be greeted with panels covered in blinking crystals, of gears and copper tubes and steam vents. What I expected was a maze of scarcely identifiable mechanical devices.

Instead, what greeted me was shockingly bizarre.

The chamber was quite large and tall, seemingly taking up the majority of the ship’s space. At the center of the chamber was a trough of soil, within in which rested a tree. Besides this tree, there was little else. Some bolted steel doors leading to the other chambers in the walls, some more crates scattered along the floor, one singular wooden table with two chairs sitting close to the tree and a number of Dwemer light stones mounted in fixtures across the room. At the table sat an Argonian, wearing the same armor the others did. I stared in shock for a moment and it seemed my confusion was noticed by the others in the room.

“Like I said, weird.”

I stopped for a second, ignoring Josiah and continued to stare at the tree. It looked familiar at first, and it took me a moment to realize that this tree was specifically familiar as the kind I had seen in the swamps of southern Morrowind.

“This is a swamp tree. A Hist.”

The Argonian, who had been reading a scroll perked at this statement. He put down the scroll and rose from his seat.

“The Cyrodill is correct, it is in the presence of The Hist. May I know the name by which the Cyrodill is known?”

“Captain Julius Corretus.”

“This Argonian is known as Knower-of-Star-Names. This one is pleased to make Captain Corretus’s acquaintance.”

Many of the Argonians that those in Cyrodill encounter are often quite assimilated. They have mastered the language of the empire better than their brothers in Black Marsh and so often their speech is more polished. This Argonian was clearly not as integrated into the Imperial customs, perhaps recruited directly from the swamps. His language was a bit courser and stranger, luckily my previous experience with Argonians had caused me to grow accustomed to these speech patterns.

“Captain Corretus is the new Security Chief. Knower here is our pilot.”

“Actually, it is not in correctness to say this one is the pilot. The true pilot is The Hist, this one simply attends to The Hist’s needs and bridges communication between The Hist and the Mananauts.”

I was not sure if I heard correctly, was this Argonian saying the tree piloted the ship?

“Did you just say the tree was piloting the ship?”

“This one is disappointed by Captain Corretus’s ignorance. This one is hearing stories of Captain Corretus’s bravery in freeing many good Argonian brothers and sisters during the War of Four-Score and will thus forgive Captain Corretus. The Hist is not a tree, the Hist is much more. The Hist thinks and feels, but more importantly, The Hist knows.”

Josiah snickered a bit.

“So he says. Whatever it is we need it to make this ship work.”

“But how can a tree, even a…thinking tree move something with no means of propulsion? I haven’t seen any anything that might make this thing fly, and for that matter, we’re dozens of feet underground! How does this thing get to the moon?”

“ Captain Corretus must understand that Secunda is not simply located in the sky. Secunda itself is a separate sphere in and of itself. One cannot simply fly to Secunda. One can fly as high as one wants and never reach any of the other spheres. One must bend the earthbones, compress the dream-spaces of Mundus and rotate 16x16 degrees to have any hope of…”

“He doesn’t know what you’re saying, none of us do.”

“What this one is explaining is that only a being of great metaphysical understanding and with roots buried deep into the dawn, such as The Hist, can properly allow a physical space to relocate to another plane.”

“So what you’re saying is that the Hist is actually teleporting this ship to Secunda?” I inquired.

“Speaking simple one could say that.”

I always considered myself an intelligent person. I read quite a bit, and although most of it was dealing with history and anthropology, I kept an open mind when it came to magic and metaphysics. I was finding this hard to swallow nonetheless. At one level, I wanted to understand how all of this worked (unlike Josiah, who seemed to be comfortable with ignorance), but at another level much of this seemed over my head. “Well thank you for taking the time to explain this to me, it was nice meeting you.”

“This one feels likewise. If Captain Corretus does wish to discuss this topic, this one is happy to explain more.”

Josiah nodded to the Argonian as he walked back to his chair and motioned for me to follow him yet again.

He showed me around the rest of the ship, though there wasn’t much left. There were three quartering rooms of bunks, two storage rooms, the entry room and the common room/mess. On this ride, there would be only the five of us. The two others would share one of the rooms, while Josiah and I each had quarters to ourselves. He claimed the Argonian didn’t sleep. Eventually, after periodically checking a watch he produced from his pocket, he motioned me to follow him back into the pilot’s chamber. As he opened the door to the chamber, he called out to the Argonian

“It’s time, you can start now”

He turned to me.

“Just don’t disturb him until we land. He doesn’t like that and it makes the ride rougher.”

The Argonian rose from his seat and touched the tree, then he just stood there motionless.

“Ok, it’s about dinner time, the food we have on here is pretty bad, but I’m hungry so if you want food follow me.”

“Is that it?”

“Yep. Where you expecting something else?”

“I don’t know, maybe some shaking, or some movement of some kind. I don’t feel anything.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way. If any of that stuff happens, then something’s wrong.”

Josiah wasn’t lying when he said the food was bad. Stale bread and pickled cabbage with a side of stewed beans. He claimed the food used to be better, before the funding cuts. After eating I noticed on one of the clocks that it was already 9 p.m.

“I think I’m going to head off for the night.”

“Go for it. There’s not much to do but sleep on this ship anyway. You should be fine, it’s pretty calm usually. I’ll send one of the guys to wake you up when we land.

I’m still completely ignorant to what my purpose on this mission is but hopefully tomorrow I will receive some answers. This trip is already shaping up to be entirely not what I expected, and I am anxious to see where this journey will take me.