Our continued exploration of the area around the Hollow City leads us to stumbling upon another cave. This one has piles of skulls and skulls on sticks at the entrance, which on Nirn would probably indicate the presence of goblins or bandits or whatever. Here, skulls might as well just be rocks for how interesting their presence is.

  There are so many bones in this cave that they might as well be rocks.

  Not far inside, I spot a the journal of one of the expedition members. Judging by the mentions of Tu’whacca and Rupgta, I assume that the person who wrote it must be a Redguard. Also I really hate the names “Tu’whacca” and “Rupgta”. I am now at the point where I wish I could continue to complain that I can’t spell a name.

  As we’re fighting our way past Dremora and Banekin, Eran pauses to look at some writing on a wall. “Neri, can you read this?”

  “Of course,” I say. “The top row says ‘slavery slave’. The bottom row says ‘oblivion obli’.”

  Eran blinks. “The Daedra just have words like ‘slavery’ and ‘Oblivion’ scrawled on everything for decoration?”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” I say.

  While exploring the cave, I find a pendant with a couple of names on it that I don’t recognize offhand, but Gelur mentions are the names of the two Khajiit she helped near here. I toss it into my bag to return to them once we get back to the Hollow City.

  “How about this one?” Eran asks, pointing to the inscription on the bottom of a fancy brazier.

  “Deathweaver,” I say.

  “That is an odd inscription for a light…” Eran says, stepping away from the brazier.

  We come upon a decoration on the floor of Molag Bal’s face with writing in a circle around it.

  “And this?” Eran says. “This doesn’t just look like one word repeated over and over.”

  “Nope,” I say. “It’s ‘Molag Bal’ and ‘Coldharbour’ repeated over and over.”

  Eran groans. “I guess that makes sense for a seal but I was hoping it at least had an interesting slogan on it or something.”

  “I’ll let you know if I spot anything interesting,” I say.

  “Could you just translate any you see?” Eran asks. “Even the silly ones are funny. I mean, who the fuck carves ‘slavery’ into the walls of their home over and over? Something is wrong with these Daedra.”

  “You could just learn to read,” I retort cheekily.

  Once we’ve explored the cave thoroughly enough to determine that any expedition members who wound up here either escaped or perished, we head outside and continue on.

  At the edge of a cliff stands a Daedric aperture with a shimmering field inside of it. I recognize the shape as a form of short-range portal used in Coldharbour generally to cross gaps between the floating bits of spiky blue-black rocks that make up much of its terrain. I assume that it’s aimed to get people across this particular gap, and stroll through. My friends follow after me shortly, with Farry dubiously trailing after them.

  As I’d expected, the portal takes us to the top of one of the islands floating high above the others. Several people stand at the top, arguing, but one of them is familiar.

  “High Kinlady Estre?” Eran groans.

  “Oh. It’s you,” High Kinlady Estre says. Her fancy dress appears to have come with her. I suppose spawning naked is something reserved for people Molag Bal really hates. “You’re truly stooped low if you are keeping company with Orcs now.”

  “It’s just Orc armor,” I say. “I’m the one who killed you. Twice.”

  “Oh. It’s you,” Estre says, her face falling even further. “Haven’t you lot sullied the traditions of the Altmer enough already?”

  “I was unaware that there was a deep tradition of Daedra worship among the Altmer,” I say. “I’ll admit that I’m pretty ignorant of a lot of customs at times, though.”

  Estre makes a sound of strained fury. A sort of “Nnnghh!” sound. Something like that. “You’d have us embrace all manner of mongrels from across Tamriel.”

  “I’m pretty sure I already violently proved the superiority of my point of view,” I say with a grin. “Would you like me to prove it again?”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  In addition to Estre, there’s a couple of sketchy-looking human men and a Dremora. I shortly learn that their names are Thallik the Undying and Angof Wormfather. Or was that the other way around? I think that was the other way around. Whatever. One human necromancer or another, what difference does it make? From their complaining, I take it that they terrorized some part of the Daggerfall Covenant and the Ebonheart Pact and were killed by Tom Gautier and Theryn Teldras, respectively. I’m glad for that, at least. I had my hands full kicking the Worm Cult out of Dominion territory, never mind the entire continent.

  There are also three mages (so I assume because they are wearing Mages Guild robes or trousers and not because they’re casting spells). They’ve been bound in purple chains and are hovering in the air looking rather miserable about their situation. Thankfully, I don’t recognize any of them offhand. This would be a much more emotionally fraught dilemma (or whatever is going on here) if the lives and souls of anyone I liked personally were on the line. Still, I’m not sure whether to be relieved or not that Ilara isn’t here.

  The Dremora calls himself the Observer, both a pretentious and literal title as he just stands here watching people fight for his amusement. Estre and the two humans were followers of Molag Bal who had failed him. Sucks to be them. They’ve been sent here to be given a chance of redemption by taking part in war games, but nobody’s under any illusions that this is any more than a bloody game to amuse Daedra.

  The Observer teleports the mages to the battlefield intending on making them kill one another and implies that we’re only going to be able to rescue one. Annoying.

  This leads to getting dumped into quite a lot of nonsense involving weird seeds and rhyming shadows and it’s really quite silly. What’s even the point of all this shit? We just wind up having to run around healing and giving pep talks to mages who had taken the stupid “fighting each other to the death” thing seriously. Our pre-mission briefing was really inadequate.

  By the Observer’s stupid rules, we need to join the game on one of the three existing sides and not just form our own fourth side and slaughter literally everyone. He seems aghast at the idea of anyone breaking his precious rules and acts like they’re sacrosanct laws of nature. I greatly doubt that.

  Uh-huh. Choose between scruffy human necromancer #1, scruffy human necromancer #2, or High Kinlady Estre. I look between each of them considerably, sigh, and approach Estre.

  “I’ll help you, Estre,” I say. “On one condition.”

  “What is it?”

  “You will swear fealty to me,” I say.

  “What?” Estre says. “You?”

  “Otherwise, I’ll go chat up Thalgof Dyingworm or whatever their names were,” I say with a shrug.

  “You would side with those filthy necromancers over me?”

  “I’m not siding with anyone,” I say. “I’m giving you the opportunity to side with me. Do you want to be on the winning side or not?”

  “A more generous opportunity than I would have offered,” Merry says dryly.

  “And what?” Estre says. “Would you ask me to support your pretty little princess, too?”

  “Don’t worry about her,” I say. “I’m here. She’s not. You’re only dealing with me right now. Anything going on in Tamriel is irrelevant here.”

  Estre sighs. “I would prefer to be on the winning side. Opposing you has not worked out well for me thus far. Anyone you support is likely to have a massive advantage in this game. This is my best chance to get out of this game. Very well. I accept your condition.”

  When push comes to shove, Estre cares less about the supposed “traditions” of the Altmer and more about her own neck. I can’t honestly fault her for that. The traditions of the Ashlanders and the Great Houses were no end of frustrating at times. It’s always a tight balancing act having to walk the edge where one tradition bumps up against another. It’s no wonder everything fell apart.

  The pointless war game gets wrapped up by me beating the shit out of the two human necromancers and retrieving the mages, and then beating the shit out of the Observer too. I definitely kill him, but by the time we get up top again, he’s already respawned. Damn that’s faster than usual. Usually it takes at least some time to do it. Fortunately, he still considers me to have won. And he has Estre and the three mages in cages like prizes to be won.

  “Choose your prize!” the Observer says. “You may take High Kinlady Estre, or these three mages.”

  “That’s quite the thing, considering her equal to those mages,” I say. “Admittedly, she’s the only one of them whose name I can remember off the top of my head.”

  “My name is Juline!” calls one of the mages.

  “And what exactly would stop me from going in there again and beating up everyone until I get whatever I want?” I say. “The mages are my people. And Estre swore herself to me, so she’s my people now too. I played fair, this time. I won’t play fair again.”

  “Ugh!” the Observer says. “Fine. Take them. Take them and leave this place and never come back.”

  Both the cages open up, and I usher everyone back to the portal. Once outside, I teleport everyone to the wayshrine in the Hollow City. The four mages are suitably impressed that something like this can exist here, but Estre just wants a drink and a warm bath. I empathize with that.

  I take a moment to return some lost things to people in the Hollow City. A pendant to a couple of Khajiit, and a lute that I forgot to return to the minstrel in the inn. Once everyone is settled in, I take Estre aside to have a much-needed chat with her.

  “The accommodations here are adequate,” Estre says. “Everything is quite disorganized, though. Who is in charge here?”

  “The Mages and Fighters Guild contingents each have their own leaders,” I say. “Vanus Galerion is still missing, though. There’s also an Ayleid king who is more intent upon revenge and all that than anything else. And then there’s the Groundskeeper who is weird and mysterious and I don’t honestly trust her at all. Aside from that, me, but I don’t have time to personally organize the tradespeople and merchants. Want the job?”

  “The Hollow City needs a Canonreeve,” Estre says. “Very well. It might not be what I hoped for in life, but it is a definite improvement over my situation before you arrived at the Cliffs of Failure.”

  “And since you’re so good at lying to people, kindly make sure that people think we have the faintest chance of success and that the entire venture isn’t hopeless and we won’t all be tortured for eternity. Thanks.”