An Excerpt from a Recovered Thalmor Text, Annotated and Assessed by the Synod

The following is an excerpt from a heavily damaged text, retrieved with numerous other curiosities and artifacts from an abandoned Thalmor research complex, located in the Ayleid ruins at [REDACTED]. A report has been submitted to First Adjunct [REDACTED] on the peculiarities of this location, as [REDACTED] was heretofore not known to have hosted a significant Ayleid population. Such investigations, however, are still underway, and not the focus of this report.

The text itself shows signs of an attempted burning. Normally, this would not pose a significant impediment to the Conclave of Archaea, but a significant portion of the ashes were soaked with an unknown ichor, which rendered them irrecoverable. What little is left is largely composed of highly contextual and incomplete research notes. The Conclave of Gnostics has been given clearance to begin reverse-engineering what is left, and will report back to Second Adjunct [REDACTED] when their research bears fruit.

The latter section of the text takes the form of a hastily penned and encoded anecdote, likely dating to the final days or hours of the complex’s abandonment. Due to the tireless efforts of the Conclave of Archaea, and an incidental contribution by a representative of the Conclave of War Magic stationed at the Penitus Oculatus outpost at [REDACTED], it was discovered that the encryption is an outdated Thalmor high priority transmission cipher. The cipher was broken by the Conclave of Archaea, again with minor input from the representative of the War Mages’ Conclave.

What follows is the recovered text. Note that certain areas were marred by ichor or scorched when persons unknown attempted to destroy it.

“could not have expected this would happen. All signs pointed to [UNINTELLIGIBLE]…” “I have barricaded myself in the deepest sel, and set the Dark Welkynd Stones toward the doors. Hopefully that will buy me time enough to devise a way out. The [UNINTELLIGIBLE] are clawing at the stone outside. I can hear them more clearly every second. They are [DAMAGED SECTION]”

“I am going to die here. Should this journal make it back to Alinor, I would inform them why. My name is [UNINTELLIGIBLE] commissioned by the High Command to research the local flora and fauna of Valenwood, to see if previous ‘Great Hunt’ incidents have rendered them unstable. Naturally, certain more advanced specimens were needed to [DAMAGED SECTION]”

“We could not understand it. When the Varla-glass lenses and imported Dwemer microculories could not identify a difference, we discarded them in favor of magicka turned to the purpose of brutal investigation. Still, the results were incontrovertible. We already knew that at the most miniscule of scales, the tiny structures that made up a fern, or a wild boar, or a Bosmer, were gradually more indistinguishable. Such things spoke to the fundamental nature of Dawn-blessed unity. But when one looked at the fern, compared to the Bosmer, who despite a history of [UNINTELLIGIBLE] did not conform to the deviation of purity laid out in the [DAMAGED SECTION]”

“head researcher grew frustrated, and allowed a surge to pass through the scrying-circle unmediated. Rather than obliterating the tissue as expected, a shocking degree of clarity [UNINTELLIGIBLE] resulted in a commendation, rather than a true reprimand for abandoning protocol. What we saw there killed us all. [DAMAGED SECTION]”

“I had to see for myself. I volunteered for the tandem observation. Despite the numbing agents used, I would have screamed had the restraints allowed my jaw full movement. When the image resolved in the quicksilver pool, my colleagues were equal parts terrified and enlightened. The mix of emotions I saw nearly shocked me out of the intense pain. [DAMAGED SECTION]”

“was beautiful. Two scrolls, circling one another, but never intersecting, forever. Always the same four variants, but arranged in infinitely different combinations. We assigned them letters: C, H, I, M, because we knew our research would change the world. I still remember a part of the code we transcribed from the sample taken from my bone marrow: CICHCIMCIHHMIMIHICCIHMIC. None of us can read it, but all of us know it is meant to be read. [DAMAGED SECTION]”

“We knew what nobody else could. Despite thousands of years of careful grooming, and breeding, and preservation, the Altmer were not just composed of the same material as common animals and plants, but the code that we found in each cell sample? It was fundamentally identical. A Bosmer eye and an Altmer eye and a dreugh eye are all written the same way, in the same language, with the same words, but… where does the difference come from? None of us could answer it, but we knew that [UNINTELLIGIBLE]”

“highest precision possible was needed. Understand, we were not [WRITING UNINTELLIGIBLE] gathered together the remaining Varla Stones to provide the needed focus for [WRITING UNINTELLIGIBLE] passed through the conduit and into the subject. The subject was [DAMAGED SECTION]”

“there was no stopping the CHIM the change the shift the warp the [UNINTELLIGIBLE]”

“wrote letters of magnus didn’t have his quill didn’t have his ink didn’t have his spectacles to see”

Thus ends the text. I remand it to the First Adjunct for examination, and reserve my opinions on the threat—or lack thereof—that it poses.

Cordially,

Vorus Cosades, Attendant to the Conclave of Archaea