[LDZ] Void Pirates and Landfall

[From a correspondence between Telvanni Kalas Sul Saren and Atti-naram Hadal]

“The exact nature of my gift is a mystery to me as well. Why did the Dov grant me numberless lives in numberless Streams? Perspective, certainly, but for them it seems to have had something to do with the nature of certain archetypal narratives intrinsic to the Aurbis. I will say this: it certainly helped me when Neoyneslea was troubled by Void pirates in the years following Landfall.

“There have been pirates in the Void at least since the days of Reman: Dremora, Khajiit, and soon Men found they could make their fortunes by raiding travelers – or plane(t)s. In the years following the Exodus, Void travel was particularly hazardous – a golden age of piracy. But there was one Stream in which a certain band of pirates established a veritable kingdom among the Remains. I know; in this Stream the Remains of Nirn after her Sundering were uninhabitable, but in that timeline there were void-bodies cast off from the main corpus; sometimes intrepid explorers (or criminals) would establish bases. That was the case with Reach Rock.

“Jassa and I went there once, gathering information for the Echmeri who’d had enough of their predations. Imagine a settlement carved out of her flesh-rock, but more than a system of caves: the pirate captain had imported Masserian brass and other materials to build an imago of Nirnian cities. Everywhere were hints of Breton refinement (fountains, stonework) but also coarser elements reminiscent of Nord architecture (carved wooden beams etc; we later learned that Breto-Nordic fusion was common in the Reach of Ald-Tamriel). Now people it with the basest manner of privateers, thieves, and highwaymen you can imagine. And yet the city worked, no doubt because of the pirate queen who ran the whole thing. The Echmer ended up negotiating a truce with her, even hired her to hunt other pirate clans. If Memory serves it was quite a lucrative deal for all parties.

“In this Stream I passed that knowledge along to the Echmer and they were able to curtail the worst of the Void pirates in the years after Landfall. Of course there was no sign of that pirate queen here, and more’s the pity. She’d have made a good ally. I’ve often wondered of her fate in this particular When.”