Chapter One: A Prisoner

"They have taken you from the Imperial City's Prison, first by carriage, and now by boat."

Dust seemed to swirl around him as Quirinus listened to the strange, inhuman voice. Before him was a twisted land of ash and stones and blackened trees. He tried to close his eyes and ignore the horror, but it did no good.

"To the East to Morrowind."

Lightning flashed across the boiling skies, and it suddenly began to rain.

"But Fear not, for I am watchful."

It seemed to Quirinus that he was now drowning. Water was everywhere, and it felt like hands were pulling him into the depths. He gasped desperately for air, but his lungs filled with water. Soon, the darkness took him.

"Wake up, we are here. Why are you shaking? Are you okay? Wakeup!"

Quirinus Latartus groggily opened his eyes and searched for the disturbance of his dreams. He eventually focused on a Dark Elf kneeling over him, his hand reaching for him.

"Stand up."

Quirinus grabbed his hand and the Dark Elf pulled him up off of the galley floor.

"There you go. You were dreaming. What's your name?"

Confused, Quirinus stared at the Dark Elf. A long scar ran down the right side of his head, cutting right through his empty eye socket, his head completely devoid of hair. It was strange to think that out of all the prisoners onboard the ship, this dark elf was the only one that had shown even an inkling of kindness towards the young, downtrodden Quirinus Latartus.

"Quirinus," said Latartus, shaking the Dark Elf's hand, "and what is your name? Oh, and thank you for helping me up."

The Dark Elf smiled, "Jiub, pleased to make your acquaintance. It's good to see an Imperial on this ship that at least has manners. Not even last night's storm could wake you. I heard them say we've reached Morrowind. I'm sure they'll let us go."

This conversation was cut short when Jiub heard the clunking of a guard's boots on the wooden floor of the ship.

"Quiet, here comes the guard!"

Sure enough, a large imperial in studded leather calmly struttted around the corner and pointed at Quirinus Latartus.

The guard shouted, "This is where you get off, come with me!"

Quirinus stood still for a second, unwilling to leave the only person he had been able to talk to since he had been spirited out of the Imperial Prison two months ago. He looked over at Jiub, who was slinking towards the far wall.

"You'd better do what they say."

Quirinus resignedly followed the guard out of the room and into the hold of the ship. Prisoners held behind bars on either side of the small hallway snaking through the cramped hold spat and insulted Quirinus as he walked past. After what seemed like an eternity to Quirinus, the guard stopped in front of the stairs to the top deck.

"Get yourself up on deck, and let's keep this as civil as possible."

The muffled roar of thunder and the roll of a heavy downpoar signalled to Quirinus that the weather was not going to be pleasant outside.

He looked back at the cramped prison ship.

Still, it had to be better than this.

Quirinus crept up the slippery steps to the hatch outside, and opened it.

Salty air whipped by his face as Quirinus climbed up on deck, his clothes drenched by the torrential downpour. He saw a redguard shout at him, but the storm overwhelmed the words.

Quirinus stood at the hatch, confused and fearful, there had never been a storm as powerful as this in Cyrodiil. The redguard furiously glared at Quirinus, and stormed over to him, and shouted in his ear, "This is where they want you. Head down to the dock and he'll show you to the Census Office."

Still confused, Quirinus stared at the redguard.

The redguard grabbed Quirinus and pulled him to the gangplank, and threw him down it.

Quirinus tumbled down, and landed, bruised, on the dock.

He looked over and saw an Imperial Officer wrapped in a cloak, trying to stay dry. He walked over to Quirinus, who shakily got off the ground.

The officer pulled a scroll out from under his robe. He quickly skimmed across the scroll, and frowned.

"You finally arrived, but our records don't show from where."

Quirinus qucikly spat out, "I'm an Imperial from Cyrodiil."

The guard wrote that down on the scroll, and hasitly said with out emotion, "Great. I'm sure you'll fit right in. Follow me up to the office and they'll finish your release."

Quirinus followed the officer into the building at the end of the rickety docks.

The interior of the building was very spartan, at the far end of the room was an ancient fireplace adorned with the imperial insignia. Apart from that, the only thing of interest was a small desk, with a small breton with glazed eyes sitting behind it.

The guard behind him took his arm and set him in front of the breton.

"Ahh yes, we've been expecting you. You'll have to be recorded before you're officially released. There are a few ways we can do this, and the choice is yours," said the breton in a nasally voice, he evidently, was a census agent.

Then, the agent began to read off from a script, "What is your class? If you do not know, we shall give you one from the aptitude test."

He passed a sheet of paper across the desk, along with a quill pen.

Quirinus neatly ticked knight on the paper, he always fancied himself as some sort of heroic warrior.

"Very good. The letter that preceded you mentioned you were born under a certain sign. And what would that be?"

Quirinus raised an eyebrow, he had never heard of any letter, things were certainly stranger than they seemed.

Still, when the agent passed another paper across the desk, he ticked the sign he had been born under, The Lady. He chuckled under his breath, for all the superstition about the signs, he had never been any luckier because of his sign.

"Interesting. Now before I stamp these papers, make sure this information is correct."

He pushed a scroll across the desk that nearly caused Quirinus's eyes to pop out of their sockets, an imperial pardon with his name on it!

As Quirinus stared at the papers, the agent tapped his fingers on the table.

"Y-yes. P-p-perfectly ac-c-curate," was all that Quirinus could say in his excitement.

"Good, show your papers to the Captain when you exit to get your release fee."

Quirinus, beaming, bowed to the agent, took the papers, and left the room and entered the hallway to the outside. As he left, he saw a fine meal set out on a table. For a second, he had an idea to snatch the fine silver and sell it, but thought better of it.

He didn't want to get into trouble so swiftly after getting out of it.

Happily, and with a spring in his step, Quirinus exited the building, and found himself in a courtyard. He looked inside a barrel at the far end of the courtyard, and found a small ring, smiling, he pocketed it, hoping that he could hawk it for some money.