How long has it been? Months? Years? How long have I been trapped in this festering rat's den of a prison? It isn't so much being indoors that bothers me – my condition has kept me inside for a good portion of my young life, and even though I've outgrown the worst of it, I will forever prefer the shade. No, what grieves me most is the lack of space. Nowhere to run, nothing to fight. I keep myself in shape as best I can – pushups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, anything I have room for – but it isn't enough. I can feel my body decaying around me, my strength and reflexes leaching away into the surrounding stone.

Why am I here? I don't remember. Some petty thieving charge, perhaps a bar fight. Does it matter? I'm here, and I doubt I'll ever be allowed out. I can hear the wind outside, the light ruffling of trees. I can't see the trees; the window is too far off the ground. When I first arrived, when my arms were still strong, I would hang onto the bars in the window and look out at the water, wanting to run, to swim, to move. My elvin affinity for nature, already weakened by my Dunmer blood, was further dampened by a youth spent indoors – but no elves, regardless of race or upbringing, do well in captivity. Outdoors or in, I need to move!

Stop it. No use teasing myself. The Imperials show little enough mercy to prisoners of their own race; a Dunmer, and a freak to boot… No. I'm a prisoner, and I'm going to die in here. I've accepted that. Captivity really isn't that bad, once you get used to it. The stone sleeping shelf is surprisingly comfortable, worn smooth by the bodies of countless prisoners over the years. I receive two meals a day, and a blanket in the winter. My clothes are warm, if less than silk-smooth, and I don't even notice the iron manacles anymore. Honest, I don't. I roll over onto my stomach, blocking out what little sunlight the window lets in, and go back to sleep.

A sudden ruckus brings me lurching to my feet. I wince as my foot comes down on a femur, a morbid remnant of a former prisoner, carefully preserved by me all this time, now shattered beneath a thoughtless heel. No time to mourn, though – the ruckus is coming closer, and Valen Dreth, the prisoner in the cell across from mine, has been roused as well. His heckling begins immediately, gleefully predicting my forthcoming execution and assuring me that when he gets out and returns to Morrowind, he'll locate my family and "take care" of them.

I take careful note of his words. Not because they worry me – if I had any remaining family in Morrowind, I would never have left – but because over the course of my imprisonment, I have grown to loathe him with an intensity that keeps me warm at night. Few things in this world are less permanent than death; executed or released, I will find a way to carve those words into his living flesh, one letter at a time.

I can hear voices now, an old man's voice, low and mournful, something about dead sons, a woman's voice responding reassuringly. Then all at once, they're here outside my cell, the old man, the woman, and two guards. The old man is clearly royalty, the woman a guard of higher rank than the other two. I recognize none of them, but judge the guards to be Blades by their armor. When they see me, voices are raised and accusations are exchanged; apparently, my cell is their destination, and was supposed to be kept empty. I smile as one of the guards blames it on a mix-up with the watch – I've been in here for gods know how long now, and they couldn't be bothered to check even once that their top-secret, life-saving escape route was still available? This strikes me as a very long, stunningly careless mix-up, and my opinion of the Imperial guards falls to a new low even as my mood rises. This is promising to be a very interesting day.

Finally, the guards decide to proceed as planned despite my presence. I retreat to the back of the cell, afraid they might execute me on the spot, but they simply warn me to stay put and walk past. I flinch as the woman kicks aside the skull, ribcage, and shattered femur of the former prisoner. The ribcage hits the wall and breaks, but the skull rolls away undamaged. She does something to the wall and the stone sleeping shelf slides away, revealing a passageway. I expect them to go through and seal it behind them, leaving me here as before, but the old man approaches me with a dazed expression.

"You. I know you. Come closer. Let me see your face." I don't move, scowling silently. I don't like it when people stare at me. But there is no malice or disgust in his eyes, just a sort of horrified resignation. "It's you. The one from my dreams. Then…the stars were right…this is the day."

The day? What day? What stars? Who is he? He knows me? How? My scowl deepens and I open my mouth, unsure where to begin. I decide to start with the basics. "Who are you?"

Despite the guards' obvious impatience, the old man shows no annoyance at my questioning. "I am your emperor, Uriel Septim."

If I wasn't already pressed against the wall, I would take a step back. I had been glaring angrily at the emperor! As a native Morrowind-born Dunmer, I resent the Imperial presence dominating my homeland, but I'm still Imperialized enough to have a proper respect for the emperor. He's three inches below a god! My knees go weak at the thought of my own impudence.

The next question comes stammering out before I can stop it. "What's going on?"

"Assassins have killed my sons, and I'm next. My Blades are leading me out of the palace. It seems the route we must take leads through your cell." My head swims as I take this in. The emperor's sons dead…! All of them? The emperor is too old to father more. Who will lead the Empire when he dies? The Elder Council, self-serving fops too far past their primes to remember the names of their own parents?

I open my mouth to voice my concerns, but the female guard chimes in. "Please, sire, we must keep moving." She puts out her hand to usher him into the passageway.

He sighs. "Yes. Yes, of course." He shoots me one last weary look, then shuffles into the passage.

Once he's through, the woman glances over at me, sighs, and turns to the others. "Better not close this doorway. There's no way to open it from the other side." Then she heads through the opening, one of the other guards on her heels.

The last guard stays behind for a moment, looking me over as though undecided as to whether or not to kill me anyway. Abruptly, he straightens and says, "Looks like this is your lucky day, prisoner. Just stay out of our way." Finally he darts through the opening to catch up with the others.

Lucky day? So…they're not going to kill me? They're leaving the passageway door open, knowing full well there's no way I'm not going to follow them and make my escape, and they're going to allow it?

So be it.

I tie my hair back with a strip of cloth torn from my shirt and, after a moment's thought, grab the skull of the former prisoner. I don't know who he was or why he was in here, but I want a reminder. A focus. I look over at the other cell – Dreth is pressed against his cell door, staring dumbstruck, silent for once. I hold the skull out in his direction, tilting it slightly so that the polished teeth catch a beam of light and gleam at him. He recoils in horror, seeing the gesture for what it is: a curse, a vow to return, to punish every cruel, mocking word that ever escaped his lips. He will rue the day his sire bedded his dam, and he knows it.

I laugh, gratified by his reaction, then turn and make my way into the passage.

Beyond the first few steps, the passageway is almost completely dark. The emperor and his guards have gotten too far ahead for the light of their torches to help me, although I can still hear their voices. I make my way carefully, one hand pressed against the wall, the other clutching the skull like a talisman.

The rock beneath my bare feet is cold and rough, though thankfully dry. The air is chilly, but not uncomfortably so, and my thick clothes stave off the worst of it. It occurs to me that the heavy iron manacles, hanging uselessly at the ends of my wrists, are going to be a problem if and when I finally get out of here. There's no chains on them, thank the gods, but they are thick and padlocked and impossible to hide.

But one crisis at a time – I turn a corner and immediately step back, blinking in the sudden light. I have caught up with the emperor's party, and it's no longer voices I hear, it's combat. Heeding the guard's warning, I stay well out of the way, staying hidden in the shadows of the passage, watching the combat with interest. The attacking assassins are wearing red and black armor, laden with spikes. Very intimidating, probably valuable. Maybe when the fight is over, I can grab a few pieces. I doubt my atrophied limbs will allow me to wear the full suit, but perhaps the cuirass and boots…

Wait…

What was that?

The guards have killed the assassins, but as each one fell, their armor shimmered and vanished! Instead of a room full of salvageable armor, there's nothing but a bunch of stupid robes. Even their weapons have disappeared, the corpses clutching nothing more sinister than smoldering torches. Damn!

A sudden juddering crash brings my attention back to the guards. I look up and my blood freezes – that crash was the closing of a heavy metal door. As I stand here, I can hear the lock clicking into place, trapping me in the dark room. The darkness doesn't last long, however. The crash must have knocked something loose, because I hear a rattling of stones before the room abruptly brightens and I am no longer alone – two rats the size of small dogs are squeaking at me, attracted by the smell of the corpses surrounding me.

With the improved light, I can see that the female guard has been killed – and, more importantly, her sword is lying on the ground beside her. The rats, attracted by the dead and finding live prey as well, have fixed their beady little eyes on me. I reach the sword just as the first rat leaps for me. Surprising even myself, I spin around and slice the little beast in half midflight.

I dispatch its brother just as quickly before stopping to catch my breath. I examine the room around me, gauging my situation, weighing my options. I'm in a small stone room, completely empty save for myself and the various corpses. The only proper exit is the iron door through which the emperor and his guards exited, which a quick test proves is indeed solidly locked. The passageway from my cell is clearly a later addition, hewn clumsily from the living rock. It occurs to me to wonder why the Imperials would have built a dead-end room whose only useful feature was added afterwards, but I dismiss this as irrelevant. Imperials are strange, and they do strange things.

The final exit is the one through which the rats entered, a hole in the wall created when the closing of the heavy door jarred the stones loose. Peering through into the room beyond, I can see a skeleton on the floor surrounded by indiscernible knickknacks, I can hear (but not see) another rat nearby, and…

…sunlight. Real, honest sunlight, streaming in through a hole in the ceiling. Sunlight itself has never been my ally, but to be outside again…to run, to swim, to move…

One thing at a time. First, the rat. There's a massive stone column in the middle of the room, blocking most of my view, but I can hear it. And I can hear only one. Smiling grimly, I creep forward over the rubble, far enough to see past the column. Quiet as I am, the rat notices me and looks up from its current snack. My stomach turns – it's a dead goblin. Still fresh. Vermin feeding on vermin.

With one hand clutching the sword and the other shielding my nose and mouth from the stench of the goblin's blood, I kill the rat and approach the hole in the ceiling. There's a bucket on a rope hanging from the hole. A well? I look around the room. This is no well, and never was. Chests and bags and loose items scattered around – goblin storeroom, perhaps? No, the skeleton is too big for a goblin, the chests too well built. Of course: bandit lair. Probably abandoned; the items look dusty and neglected, the skeleton long since picked clean by rats.

I turn back to the hole in the ceiling, whispering a prayer of gratitude to whichever god brought me here. The light is too bright to see what the rope is hanging from. The rope is too frayed to climb, and I doubt my weakened limbs would support me anyway. However, I've always been creative and good with my hands; perhaps I could build something to help me get up there. Anyway, even if I have to stay down here a while longer and find another exit, one never knows when some rope might come in handy. I reach out to take it…

…and freeze in horror as the sunlight hits my skin for the first time in ages. I'd been hidden in the darkness of my cell so long, I had almost forgotten. I glare down at my arm, the ice-white flesh glaring back at me, mocking me. I know the official word for it – albino – but official words are meaningless when faced with a mother's shame, a father's abandonment, the cruel words and flying fists of other children. My prayers die in my throat as the old hatred comes flooding back, hatred of the gods who had cursed me with such a deformity. Enraged, I grasp the rope and yank hard. The rope snaps and whatever it was hanging from breaks, showering me in wood and stone and choking off the sunlight. The end of the rope strikes me between the eyes as if in retaliation. My vision explodes and I drop to my knees, quivering with pain and fury.

The skull. Where's the skull? I dropped it when the rats attacked me. Blood is running into my eyes; I wipe it away and get to my feet. With the sunlight blocked off, the room is completely dark save for the light of the assassins' torches in the other room. I make my way back there, stumbling over rocks and bodies until I find the skull on the floor where I had dropped it, still miraculously unharmed. I kneel on the floor and clutch the skull to my stomach. The wave of fury has almost passed, leaving a burning despair in its wake. Can't concentrate. Can't breathe. So tired.

No. Focus. Small steps. Concentrate. Look around, take stock. Dying torches. Dead assassins. Dead guard. Dead goblin. Dead rats. Locked door. Check the guard's pockets; no key, but there's a tinderbox and a couple of septims. Use the tinderbox, relight a torch. Check the assassins' pockets; various potions. Hungry. Take the torches, build a fire, roast a rat.

With full belly and bright torch, I feel much better. I go back to the room with the dead goblin, and smack myself when I see what my haste and anger had blinded me to earlier – a door. It's locked, but a quick search of the goblin gives me the key. I take a few steps into the corridor past the door, but then stop and go back. If we're going to do this, then let's do this right.

The chests and bags in the room provide an impressive array of supplies, including a full set of leather armor. The armor is crudely made, poorly maintained, and built for someone larger than an emaciated elf, but it's light enough that I can wear the full set even in my weakened state, and it's better than braving goblins and assassins in my skivvies. The only thing I have to leave off are the gauntlets; my manacles are too large to allow the gauntlets to fit over them, too tight to allow the gauntlets to fit under them, and too sturdy to be bashed open with a rock.

There are few weapons in here, most of them cracked, rusted, or otherwise useless. I do grab a serviceable knife, and the guard's sword will do nicely. I find food (mostly rotten), potions, lockpicks, coins, even a decently sized sapphire. This gives me pause – I had assumed the lair was abandoned, but why had the bandits left behind such loot? And even if it is abandoned, why have the goblins not cleaned it out? Clearly they know about it; the goblin in front of the door has not been dead for long.

Does it matter? If it's abandoned, there's no reason to stay; if it isn't, all the more reason to go. A generous length of rope goes around my waist, replacing my frayed sack-cloth belt. I take the robe off one of the assassins and tear it into strips. The hood of the robe makes a handy pouch; I fill it with the smaller items and some leftover rat meat, use one cloth strip to tie it shut, one to tie it to my new belt. One strip to tie the torches together, one to tie that to my belt. One strip goes through the eye sockets of the skull and hangs it from my belt. The rest of the strips go into the pouch for future use. I sling the leather shield across my back, light one of the torches, pick up the sword, and go through the door.