Applying Exotic Metaphysics (Truth, 19.2)

The ancient dunmer facility had seen better days. Of course, it also had seen worse days too. I could see members of House Dagoth sweeping ash away, setting up chimes. Some had bowls full of painted clay, gently painting the stronghold’s walls. A hunch-backed priest carefully glued together chimes out of glass shards, repairing an old shrine.

There was a small, burgeoning city starting to form around the fortress, supplied by a slowly-growing pile of bricks being builtI noticed some similarities between the way Sessalan repaired Tel Veyond, and the way the mystics were singing together ash into the dark bricks used for the houses. I haven’t seen any altmer building things yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they used a variant of the same method. 

I slipped through, from my shadow into reality, my robes fluttering as the slowfall spell took effect. My talons landed in the ash, and I stood before Kohgoruhn in truth. started to approach. One after the other, the dunmer started to notice me.

“Adventurer! I am Uthol, and you approach sacred ground!” An armed guard said, standing straight. In hand was an old-styled ebony scimitar, bells hanging from the pommel. He had streaks of gold painted over his dark, fogged-malachite armor. The sigil of House Dagoth sat proudly on his chest. “This proud fortress is no longer a place to loot for treasure. Lord Dagoth resides here, as he did once.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been an adventurer,” I called back. “I am Maria Manatsoni! Is the Hortator here?”

He stared for a moment. I held up my letter- the one I’d gotten back from Kirat. He eyed it for a moment, then sheathed his scimitar.

“Ah. You come for Kirat. Yes. She is above, needling our Lord with inanities while he repairs the Propylon Chamber. Come.”

“Needling?” I asked, as he started to march up the steps onto the top of the fortress. “That seems a little rude to refer to a Hortator.”

“Bah. House Dagoth had not yet been reborn, when she was given her title by the other Houses. So she is their hortator, but not ours.”

“True, I suppose.” You say. “Is that how most of House Dagoth feels?”

“If you’re the Manatsoni I’ve heard of, then you know Voryn sees Nerevar Indoril in her, and holds her in high esteem. Or do you mean the lesser members?”

“The lesser members.” I asked.

“Of the former heartwights… Many are spiteful, especially Vemyn and Odros. They were hoping for a grand fight against the Nerevarine, only to find she’d stolen Sunder and Keening without even being spotted. Endus seems particularly fond of her. Something about similar taste in drink, I suppose. The fool always did like his brandy. The lesser ones, the once-ghouls and the sleepers we’ve accepted… they worship her as most modern dunmer do.”

He opened the large door to what appeared to be the chamber-

I took a half-step back as a dark shape was suddenly on us, faster than even my reflexes could deal with. I was spinning, Kirat latched around me as she forced me into a spin. If it weren’t for my tail’s counterbalance, I’d have fallen over.

“Mary!” She calls, cheerfully.

“Kirat.” I responded, and poked her in the nose. She wrinkled her face at it. “How have you been?”

“Dealing with political bullshit.” She responded. “Cleaning up after the Tribunal, mostly. Hey, Uthol.”

“Greetings, Hortator.” The former ash-vampire drawled.

“Mind helping Voryn out? He’s struggling to remember how the propylon indices worked,” She says. “It’s all magic stuff.”

“I’ve got a spell for that. Enhances memory,” I say, pulling a scroll out of my shadow. I handed it to Uthol, and he accepted it with a nod.

“Come on,” Kirat said, leaping off of me. “The day’s pretty clear of ash, so there’s a really nice view from the north side.”

The two of us sat on the edge of the stronghold there, looking northward. Past the ridge, we could see the stone pillars of Sheogorad poking up from the sea of ghosts like a hundred hands, reaching toward the sky.

“It is a clear day,” I said. 

“Is this a Sujamma or a Greef kind of talk?” She asked.

“Greef.” I responded. I didn’t want the hard stuff.

She grinned and flicked her fingers, clinking two bottles of Greef together that weren’t in her hand a second ago. I took one, pulling the cork.

“So.” She says. “What’s up in the land of esoteric magic stuff?”

“I… I went to Sheogorath’s realm. And while I was there, some things were revealed to me.”

“What kind of things?” She asks.

I’m not exactly sure what I am, anymore.” I say. “Or what I ever was, originally. Or what any of it means.”

Kirat frowns. “Yeah. I know how that feels.” She says, finally. “I’m not who I used to be, either. Not just a kid growing up in dragonbridge being made fun of because I had a tail. Neither am I Nerevar, raised like a prince in the House of Mora.”

She stared off, eyes gazing off into the distance.

“I’m someone else, now.” She says. “But here’s what I’ve figured out. I am who I am because of who I was before. Like how a child sits on the shoulders of their parents, and how the dunmer stand by the support of their ancestors. A person is a potion. I just happen to be one with an extra ingredient. But the ingredients aren’t actually important- the only thing people care about is what a potion does.”

I scoffed. “That’s a little deep for you, Kirat.”

“I’m spending way too much time around Voryn, probably.” She responded, and took a sip of Greef. “But, well… I’m just me. And you’re just you. That’s all that matters, really.”

“Yeah, from one point of view.” I said. “But this whole thing is a little more concerning,” I said.

I subsumed my breastplate back into my shadow for a moment, and Kirat looked- and blanched.

“What is that?” She asked, eyes wide. “There are moon ghosts that look like that.”

“I was cast out.” I said. “From Aurbis. And when I pulled myself back… I couldn’t pull all of myself. There’s… something missing.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t- I don’t understand it.” I said. That was the fundamental truth. “I don’t know. I need to know, to pull it back from- from…”

From nothing. From fiction?

“...What do you need?” Kirat asked. In that moment, at the stern look in her eyes, I knew. She would do anything. In that moment, whatever I needed, she was on my side.

“I need to talk to Sotha Sil.” I said.

Kirat raised an eyebrow, and opened her palm. Sitting within was a ring.

“Almalexia was so angry at him. She wanted this ring. With it, she could teleport straight to him. She was going to kill him.”

“You could tell?”

“Nerevar would have believed her. All of her talk about doing things for the people of Morrowind. But I’ve never heard a lie and believed it, and that woman… oozed falsehood. Even worse than Vivec.”

“Oh.”

“We fought. She lost.” Kirat said. “And the ring’s still dead. I think the lich I stole it from sealed it, somehow.”

I took the small ring, and glanced at it. I looked through it, around it, delving into shadow magic.

The ring was… foolishly made. It was meant to be a tool for opening rifts, but it did it clumsily. Small micro-rifts would be torn open to every plane, when activated. It would shear a hole through Aetherius for power, a hole through everything. The control schema was misaligned, and the dragonfires would retaliate against the user almost immediately- and that’s if the Daedra whose realms are being attacked didn’t.

In fact… it was broken. To get it to work again, you’re not even sure what Almalexia would have done. Perhaps use one of her dregs of the Heart’s power to connect to the other members of the Tribunal? Use them as an anchor?

I didn’t even really need to know. I had my own solution, after all.

“The uh, lich you stole this from. He still around?”

“Don’t see why he wouldn’t. I just kinda nicked it, left a replacement, and left. He might not have even noticed I was there.”

“Thanks, Kirat.” I said. “I’ll be back, whole and hearty.”

“You do that.” She grinned.

I finished off my Greef, handed her the empty bottle, and then got back to my feet. 

Shadowrend twisted around my hand, and then spiked through the hole in the mazed band. It contorted itself, twisting into a long, spiralling staff. Panels- tines- of dwemer song-panels arrayed themselves up and down the sides.

The mazed band fit perfectly near the tip of the staff, where petal-like panels of dwemer metal rang out.

“The Clockwork City,” I commanded. The petals chimed, Shadow Magic swelled- turning the ‘everything’ rift into a very particular select one- and a portal ripped itself open.