The blood is a better vessel

###The blood is a better vessel###

By Anonymous.

This is a Tamrielic translation from a Middle Cyro-Norst text, which we think it was written by this story protagonist Cleoxes or one of his close friends. According to the historians and archeologists, the original text was redacted in the 1E 2500’s-1E 2600’s.

The night fell on the Heartlands. Cleoxes sang the mantras and the moths came to him. He could feel the ancestors’ souls inside of them. In his mind, they were talking him. But Cleoxes did not thrust their whispers anymore. Except the future, he already knew all what he needed. The monks taught him to seen through the veil. He had actually seen through the veil, but not the one that the monks had indicated him. They had said him that death was only an illusion, that pure spirits were being one with the One. Cleoxes had dived into the light, hoping reach the purity which would permit him break the illusion and enter into the moths congregation. He embarked on the Elder Scrolls reading, but stopped when he saw massacres which had occurred a few decades ago. Holy men and holy women had fallen against brigands and upstarts. The pious East had been broken by the impious West. He could see these terrible events through the dead’s eyes, the ones of the moths which were touching down on his neck and his face, covered by an odorous sap. Was death really an illusion or rather a fatality, only immutable truth?

The East could not give him answers, therefore Cleoxes had turned toward the West. Here, he bumped into some demon. Reacting according to the Monkey Prophet, he clenched his fists and prepared to invoke the fury of his sacred magicka. But he hesitated. He had seen the saints’ weakness. Would he be strong enough to defeat the Void creature? The demon asked:

“Will you be strong enough?”

“I don’t fear death!” Cleoxes bravely and stupidly exclaimed.

“A lie. You really look like these little insects which stuck to your skin a lot. You too, you spread lies.”

“The moths don’t lie. Their souls are the ancestors’ ones, weaved in the silk.”

“In the silk? A really weak vessel for something as precious as a soul!”

“Do you know better?”

“Yes, I know one. Go to the Niben and talk to the time-totems. When you’ll have your answer, go deep in the jungle and they’ll teach you secrets.”

The demon returned into the Void, leaving Cleoxes the head full of questions. He wanted to turn away from the demon, but questions demand answers. He went back to home, to the East.

He reached the Niben and found the dragons. He asked them if there were a better vessel for a soul than the silk. The time-totems refused answer him before he accomplished sixteen tests. Cleoxes was a worthy man and so he accomplished his sixteen tests who drove him in whole Cyrod and Ut Cyrod. So the dragons revealed him that a better vessel for the soul was the blood.

The answer in the head, Cleoxes therefore went deep in the jungle. The demon had not lied; he had to still follow his way. However what Cleoxes found in the jungle shocked him. He saw aimless Chaos and the sins of man and wanted to turn away from these abominations. But the demon came back and said:

“Come on, Cleoxes! Did not I say you the truth?”

“Yes, you said it. I talked with the time-totems. The blood is a better vessel than the silk.”

“Yes, the blood is better. I didn’t lie. So why do you run away the secrets they could teach you here? Are those moths which urge you to turn away from the scarlet truth?”

“The spirits can’t push me to turn my back on my way!” Cleoxes exclaimed in his hurt pride.

“So stay in the jungle and let these demons and snakes teach you what they know.”

Cleoxes thus stayed in the jungle and they taught him a lot. He learnt from demons and snakes the belly-magicks, the magick like a knife and secrets and truths whose he was ignoring the existence itself. But more important, they taught him how to weave the soul, not in the silk anymore, but in the blood. This vessel was better.

Death was not an illusion. Death was real. Cleoxes could have become as weak as a moth if he had wanted it, be in communion with the One, diluted himself so that his existence would have meant nothing, subjected to a Great Whole which would crush him by his huge mass. No. Cleoxes would not be as weak as a moth. Death was real, but it could be fought, by dominating others with the blood ties and by surviving beyond death with the blood ties. Cleoxes will be eternal, dominating, tied forever to his congregation by the blood.

The night fell on the Heartlands. Cleoxes sang the mantras and the moths came to him. He could feel the ancestors’ souls inside of them. In his mind, they were talking him. But Cleoxes did not thrust their whispers anymore. He had learnt really more truths from demons and snakes. He had learnt and acquired the strength to fight death. Cleoxes was become a powerful snakeman. The moths were only diminished remnants of individuals too ignorant or too stupid to understand that death is not an illusion. And now, his voice, passed by the blood, was dominating the moths and, thanks his insect servants, he could clearly read the Elder Scrolls, to foresee the future which was waiting them, he and his new congregation.