The Aftermath: Entry # 14

3rd Sun’s Dawn, 4E 199

Drusus Varo, Overseer of the Ascadian Isles Expedition

I have some important news: Lideg and Ervis are dead. We found them yesterday, mutilated inside a shrine in the cluttered underworks of the latest canton. Looks like a Dreugh attack. The only time they could have explored the canton is during the night, while I slept. No more dealing with them, and no way to use them for information—all I know is that Lideg was communicating with someone (or something) very powerful. Using the wedding as a sort of code.

This event gained more meaning when I had another dream last night. Two, rather. The first was through the eyes of who I assume to be Mehra Milo. I spent most of the dream walking. It was fast walking though, not because I was fast, but more because time was flowing at a greater pace. The intact cantons of Vivec zoomed by deliberately. I made my first stop at the place where I had last written the note to Amaya. I could sense that time had passed since then.

This time I found a different note lying in the same place. It was written in very sloppy Daedric with ink blotches and left-handed smudge marks everywhere, but somehow I read it with ease. And I still remember the message clearly:

Lock me up there, alive. Tell them I went east, where nobody will follow.

My end will come when it wants to. Too much now

The visions

I can still hear the beating. I did what she wanted. She said I was free. But she doesn’t care anymore so I stole her star. Now there’s only the moon left

Now the Three are dead by the three tools. They killed me once so I could kill them

I used the star to trap them inside, they didn’t go to the cairn like most didn’t want to do it you can’t break the tools so hide them

I hate Her now and I want her gone, don’t let me lock me up please

The disease is back and her blessing is gone. I didn’t want to be a tool like Kagrenacs’ so I cut my right hand off and ate it. This marks the countdown to the fall. I’ll fall with it, sins absolved

If I can’t stop it, I wish I didn’t know what’s going to happen. Sorry I’m in the rock now burn this note

Please, lock me up there.

–Amaya

I did as the note asked. I burned it in the fireplace of the next chamber. Then I blacked out, and was suddenly holding two weapons. A blade and a hammer. One I knew. The blade. It was the one that killed Cogan, the one that went missing. And somehow, I was holding it. Here’s why: I was wearing a gauntlet on my hand. Not an ordinary one, that’s certain.

So the fast walking started again. Still holding the weapons, I made my way south (from the cantons that I had already recognized in the real world). When I am awake, ash obscures the air so much that it’s usually impossible to see the cantons around you.

So in this dream, the next canton was a new sight. It was flatter than the others and mostly open-air, embellished with people of all ages, three-faced shrines, and great stone monuments to who I can only assume was Vivec. But the city was frozen around me. It was like walking through a living painting, except I could hear “still” sounds as well. I heard chatter and footsteps, but somehow that was paused in the moment too, without being silent. A sensation I can no longer comprehend now that I’m awake.

With all of the sleek architecture and holy embellishment, I noticed the odd juxtaposition: Baar Dau in the sky. Rough and menacing, the moonlet had a boardwalk attached to it with a doorway cut into the side. I levitated towards it.

My feet almost grazed the boardwalk. Then the whole world began to shake and I woke up. The last thing I remember is the tools and gauntlet scattering from my hand.

I was overcome by the vague aftertaste of a memory. The first thing I did when I awoke was retrieve Mehra’s book from my desk. Then I confirmed it—Keening, Sunder, Wraithguard. The descriptions matched too well not to remember. The answer brought many questions. With these questions floating around, I felt an unusual drowsiness, and before I knew it I was dreaming again.

This next dream was a Dreugh one. I was swimming near in one of the canals of Vivec. Only the world began to shake at the very beginning of the dream, and I blacked out. Regained my senses with the undeniable feeling of time passed. A lot of time. Many years lost. Everything was destroyed, like it is now. But I was alive.

I roamed the sunken halls and flooded canals until I saw a familiar place. The shrine from yesterday, where we found the bodies. Floating there, I saw the hammer. Sunder, that’s what it was called. Then I looked up through a hole in the ceiling to see the darkening orange sky.

A woman’s voice called to me. It was vaguely familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it. Certainly nobody I know on this expedition.

It said, “Protect my realm from his wretched husk. Harm only those who support him. You and your kin can extinguish this remnant of the past, and stop the creation of a monster. I am watching.”

Then Lideg and Ervis dropped through the hole. There was nothing I could do at first. I became paralyzed, forced to watch them conjure a tortured winged twilight and send it away with Sunder. I had failed. But then my limbs moved. There was something I could do then.

I did not hesitate to pull them both underwater with my claws, to lacerate their fragile bodies and leave them decaying in the shrine. Then I swam away. Fast, bending time, like in the previous dream. Until I passed the temple and reached the final canton.

I clawed at the wall. I can’t find words in my Tamrielic Thesaurus to describe my frustration when I knew I couldn’t get in there. Because I knew the gauntlet was there. Wraithguard, with the soul of Vehk trapped inside. I tried to scream, but apparently Dreughs don’t have the human larynx, so I woke up instead.

And as you know, Lideg and Ervis are dead. A confirmation of the uncanny truthfulness of my dreams. No, not dreams. These are visions. Let’s just say I’m no longer writing search reports.

This is a lot to chew on as it is. But I should also mention: I hear voices now. One is the previously mentioned voice from last night’s dream.

I told this to Mehra, who seemed shaken by something. Well as it turns out she hears the voices too.

And we agree that this voice can only belong to the Daedric prince Azura. The other voice, well. We have our theories. And some of them chill me to the bone.

We have a plan. On paper it looks dangerous and stupid. But we talked each other into it, and I deem it necessary. Lideg may have been the messenger, but he and Ervis were not the only ones to partake in this scheme. If the third tool of Kagrenac has not been stolen, we need to hide it.

In a few minutes Mehra and I will search for Wraithguard in the southernmost canton of Vivec. We snuck sneaked into the other tent and Mehra transcribed the incantations from Cirelmo’s spellbooks. We are stocked up on scrolls of water breathing and ward. If my dreams don’t lie, the Dreughs will actually leave us alone.

If it is Azura, I’m glad there is someone watching over us.

Previous entry: http://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/2dsbgi/the_aftermath_entry_13/

First entry: http://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/2d2k6b/the_aftermath_entry_1/

Edit: formatting