A/N: The first part here is a bit of Laje-tal's past, just in case there is any confusion.
From the very first day, she had been a nuisance to her Dunmer owners. At first it had been small things, tipping over barrels to crash into other things, putting out crucial lights, rearranging rocks to be tripped on. Working in a glass mine was hard, after all, and someone had to make things more interesting. Someone had to make their captors hate every moment they were here. Nearby a Khajiit was getting an undeserved lashing, accused of stealing – again. Laje-tal, small and hard to notice, slipped into the shadows of a nearby crevice, picking up a hefty rock. As soon as a pack guar came by she tossed the rock at its tail, startling it and causing it to dump its load all over the ground. The Dunmer overseers all scrambled to calm the beast down and the Khajiit escaped.
These small time annoyances just didn't accomplish enough for her. She was always tired, hungry, and overworked. Some of the others were worse off, victims of supposed crimes or wrongdoings that she tried hard not to let her own self get caught doing. Pretty soon she would run out of time. Those magic nullifying bracers would finally fit her, and she would be relegated to a mundane life. Today had to be the day to escape. The others couldn't be counted on. If this failed, they would get caught again and be even worse off than they were before. Luckily she had found just the thing she needed to cause a distraction large enough.
Nobody had paid much mind to a leftover spellbook that had been dropped behind a bench one day, but she had swiped it up like so much treasure, learning from it all she could just as she had secretly learned to read to begin with. It was a complicated spell, one she had worked and worked on for the past two years, absorbing the strange terms and instructions with only half understanding. Now was the time to put it to the test, ready or not. She crept deeper into the bowels of the caverns, down to a place few came into. There was a dangerous sort of gas, from what she heard, but if it was flammable, she had her escape ticket.
A guard passed by on his rounds, refined bonemold armor managing to gleam in the wan light. Again she was grateful for her dark scales, not the blue or gold of her fellow Argonians. She closed her glowing golden eyes, letting the guard's gaze slip right over her. Once he was well enough away she crept low, trying to sniff out that gas pocket she had just started to smell. It didn't have much of a scent, but she could somehow tell it was there. The trick now was to get close enough to launch a fireball, hide, and then make it behind the guards that would probably pile in. Not having any better plan, she picked a likely corner, unleashing the ball of flame deep into the heart of the gas.
The explosion that followed was louder and more violent than anything she could ever have thought of before. Her ears rang with the sheer noise and pressure of the blast, disorienting her long enough to lose focus. Thankfully everyone rushing through the tunnels weren't at all focused on her, and she managed to recover enough to move in the opposite direction. In the confusion she eluded most of the people that ran past, and at long last, light glowed in the distance. Escape! Just as she rounded the corner, though, she heard a rough voice call out.
"Wait. Take me with you."
There at the bend in the cave was a young Dunmer man, reddish hair filthy and the rest of him dangerously thin. Was he also somehow a slave? It never occurred to her that slavers would take in their own kind like this. Well, she could hardly turn him down. Dunmer or not, they were both in the same position. He might be able to help fight their way out of here. "Alright, come on then." Handing him a small scrap of metal so he might try to pick his way out of his bracers, they hurried along while secondary explosions rocked the cave all around them.
"You did this, didn't you?"
She just nodded at him, not wasting time on too many words. They had finally come to the outside world, the sun beaming down on their grateful faces. It had been far too long since she had had the sun on her scales. As welcoming as the open field was, they kept low to the ground, evading more incoming guards and workers rushing to the site. Once out of sight enough to think about where to go from here, she frowned down at his progress on the bracers. "Let me have a try at them."
"Might as well. If you can get them off, I'll be a lot more useful. A bit of sorcery might teach those fools a thing or two."
Now that was a very encouraging thing to hear indeed. "A sorceror? Good, maybe you can tell me more about this." Taking a moment to hand him the spell tome she had been looking at, she set about picking the lock. For some reason she and the other Argonians and Khajiit were naturally adept at this sort of thing. "If I can just make out that last passage, I can get us out of here for sure."
He frowned at the book once he saw what it was. "You really mean to summon a flame atronach? Here, in the mine?"
"No, not in the mine, in front of the main house. If I can do that, I'll force the guards to go defend it instead of the mine, and then we can get the others out too."
"You're crazy." He paged through the book, though, and glanced at the last passage in it, all written out in Daedric. "Hmph, well it's in Daedric script. It says to pull the soul force towards your plane, concentrating it on the spot in front of you. Will it to look away from you, and focus on the enemy." Looking down at the scrawny Argonian child, he had his doubts that she could even manage such a spell. "You're really sure about this? We could just set fire to the house."
"No, they would just put it out. I need something that lasts longer. If you want to run, then go." Finally the latch in his bracers came loose, freeing him from the draining spell. "Do what you want, I'm going."
The redhead sighed a rueful sigh. "You won't be able to do it alone. You might be crazy, but I'm not one to turn down a little payback. Let's go." His magic now restored, he summoned up a strong fire shield. They avoided the main road, sneaking near the house where the owners of the mine lived. It was naturally a fine house that was most likely filled with fine things, and with any luck they were fine flammable things. Just in sight of the door they stopped, and Laje-tal readied herself to cast the spell.
"I really hope this works." Spacing her feet apart just as the book instructed, she drew upon the unnaturally large amount of reserves of mana that had always seemed ready to constantly burst from her. She never knew why she had been so tuned into magic, but right now she was glad for it. Focused fire melded at her fingertips, the conjuration spell surging into her mind. Then she felt it, the soul force the book had mentioned. It would have taken her by surprise for sure if she hadn't had that last passage translated. Drawing it out, she set her focus on the space of dirt in front of her, willing the creature not to look at her. The Dunmer man would be protected by his natural resistance to fire if she failed, but she didn't want to be burned to a crisp either. Just when it seemed like she might lose the spell, a fire atronach materialized before her, its sights set right on the thatched roof. It worked!
"Come on," the man said quickly, pulling her away. "You managed to do it, but you better get away before it starts to wonder where it is. Let's wait near the mine and see what happens."
She didn't question his advice, simply grateful he was giving it to her, and they hid in a crevice close to the mine as they watched the destruction. The thatched roof was almost immediately afire, the flame atronach roaring its defiance mindlessly. Its roars attracted the attention of the guards again, and once the two were sure the last one had come out, they saw a couple slaves had already had the idea to leave, a few Argonians and Khajiit scattering in every direction. "Maybe we don't need to go back in there for them after all."
"Maybe not. Since you made one of the tunnels explode, it isn't safe in there anymore. I'll bet the guards were the only thing holding them back." Sure enough a few more ran out of the cavern as the ground both above and underneath shook from further explosions, verifying the suspicion. "We'd better run too before the guards catch on. If the others don't think to escape, then that's just too bad. They're on their own."
It was a cold logic, but a true one. She knew there wasn't much choice. "Alright. Where should we go?"
He laughed under his breath. "All of that planning and you didn't think of where you were going? I know a place, an Imperial town. They may not enforce the slavery ban all the way out here, but they sure won't have it in their towns and cities. I've got a few... friends out there who could help us."
Her brow furrowed as her suspicion grew. "You're a thief."
"No, no! I just, you know... get the right things for the right people, go through certain channels, and..." Feeling a bit nervous under her stare – which he shouldn't, she was just a child – he drew back from her scrutiny. No, she wasn't just a child, she was a child who just summoned a flame atronach like it was nothing. "Yes, sometimes I do a thing or two for them if they need it, but really it's all business! I just got caught, you know? That's why I was doing this stint in the mine, those guards caught me at it."
"Thought so." Craning her neck to see if the coast was clear she motioned him to come along. "Doesn't matter to me. If you've got a place we can stay until things die down, let's go there. Thieves Guild connections are probably better for an escaped slave anyway."
"I've got Mages Guild connections too if it comes to that." They both crouched in surprise as an explosion of flame shot off inside the house, the building bursting into pieces as guards shouted to each other. Nobody inside could have survived that. "Let's go."
It was a long, hard run filled with evading and fighting, their reserves low from the hard life in the mines. Wild animals were avoided at all costs, some diseased or acting strangely. Nights were taken in shifts, not risking a fire and keeping a wary, watchful vigilance throughout. One night, Laje-tal finally asked a question she hadn't thought to ask yet. "What's your name, Dunmer?"
He gave her a bit of a smirk, noticing that she had called him a Dunmer, not just a dark elf. "Edd Theman, everyone just calls me Eddie, or Fast Eddie, whatever suits. If you ever need a bit of something here or there, I might be able to get it."
In the middle of her story, Aryon interrupted. "You really met up with Eddie back then?"
At the inn back in Raven Rock, they had found a room to share for the night – much to the puzzlement of the owner. The fire at the hearth burned pleasantly, the entire room comfortable in its familiar architecture. Laje-tal sat at the head of the bed, and Aryon faced her at the end, resting from the journey. Leaning forward to rest her arm on her raised knee, she nodded. "It's strange, how these things come back to you later, but I did. I don't know if I owed him my life or he owed me his, but we were at an agreement of sorts. If either of us needed help again, we would keep each other in mind. Even after he became my mouth in the council, we traded favors now and then."
"No wonder you found a mouth so quickly. I wonder where he is now."
"I don't know. I warned him to evacuate Balmora just like so many others I knew there, I even advised him to go nowhere near the southern border, but whether he left or not I haven't heard. I don't think he would have ignored it, though. I'm sure he found some guild to fall in with, or maybe a caravan to guard."
"Probably. So then you went to the Imperial town he knew of? Is that where you found that family of nobles?"
"No, but that was the first step. This was a smaller town, not many people actually living there. It was a trading crossroad, a place built up around a mine and only running after the mine dried up by all the traders coming through on the way to somewhere else. Guilds had a small presence there for the most part, but you had better believe it was prime territory for the Thieves Guild. He had to lean on a few people he knew, but eventually we found a Twin Lamps agent willing to help me. They helped him too, of course, after all the trouble, but that was where we parted ways. I was taken by caravan to a much larger Imperial city, and that's where I was hired on as a servant."
"Then you were there until you joined with Barenziah's caravan. Ah, wait..." Thinking back on her interesting situation with that infamous play by that Hlaalu councilor, it became a bit more clear just when she had earned that infamy. "So that's when you knew Crassius Curio."
She sneered just at the mention of him. "Yes, that disgusting man. It was that situation that made me finally decide to leave. Everything was going very well in the caravan until some idiot Breton mage accidentally set fire to all of the queen's clothing and blamed me for it. Everyone knew that my fire magic was chaotic at times, it didn't take much to convince them that I did it, never mind the queen's opinion. From there, you pretty much know the rest. I was imprisoned for about half a year, then taken to Vvardenfell."
"And somehow you ended up here." He shot her a small smile. "What made you go to Sadrith Mora?"
"There were a few things. After going into Balmora, I decided to join with the Mages Guild to try to tame down some of my destruction magics. After asking around a little, I found out that there was an Argonian mage in Sadrith Mora. That seemed strange, so I asked more questions about the place. They told me that Sadrith Mora was a city of two faces, one Imperial, one Telvanni. Of course at that time I didn't know anything about the great houses, but the thought of a two-faced city seemed so interesting that I had to go see it for myself. When I crossed the Imperial bridge, I understood what they meant."
"Sadrith Mora was a unique place," he agreed. "I'm sure the guards there treated you quite... cordially."
She snorted at that. "Indeed. Once I joined House Telvanni they changed their tune quickly enough, but until then I was worse than the scum under their feet. Sure, I could have joined House Hlaalu, they'd take anyone, and Redoran wouldn't have turned down a mage that had potential, but the Telvanni! You should have seen those terribly confused mouths at the council house when I walked in. It's hard to find a Dunmer completely baffled, but I found a whole room full of them. The Mages Guild was all well and good, but there was quite a bit of competition and the rules were such that someone might frame me again if they had mind to. House Telvanni, though... well, if someone was singed after provoking me, then clearly they deserved it. If they then retaliated, I had every right to defend myself."
"So it was convenient."
"For a while. Then I heard about what you were up to, and that you needed someone to help you. That's when I knew I wanted a bit more than convenience."
"I remember that." Finally feeling warm after such a long time out in the cold, he tugged off his long set of mage robes, leaving a sleeveless undershirt and lighter pants. The light from the fire glowed across his skin as he sat back down, inspecting the long scarred blotching on his left arm. In time most of the marks of corprus had faded away into his normal skin tone, but it had been a large, long patch to begin with and it still was. His hand glowed white gold as he summoned up a little restoration magic, doing what he could to at least ease the blistery dryness of the damaged skin.
Every time she saw it she felt somewhat responsible, though she knew she was being silly. The initial onset of corprus had come with almost no symptoms at all, and it was only long after she had infected Aryon that she even realized there was something wrong. She couldn't have possibly done any more than she did, but it still gave her a small pang of guilt. Taking a small ceramic jar from her pack, she took out a dab of the gel from it. "Here, try some of this. It doesn't get rid of the scars, but it's been relieving the itch on mine." He offered over his arm and she set about rubbing the salve deep into the pocked scars. The sigh of relief was all the confirmation she needed.
"It's always so abominably itchy. What's in that mixture?"
"Blue mountain flowers, some dragon's tongue, a bit of fire salts. While it boiled I added powdered hawk feathers and mudcrab chitin. I think the hawk feathers were what I was missing before. It just didn't seem quite as potent without them."
"Whatever makes that damned itch go away, I'll try it." The salve was working, thankfully, and he relaxed as the mixture set in. For a moment he just waited while she worked, thinking over the long and interesting story she had just told. There was a great deal he wanted to say, but he didn't find himself saying any of it. He wanted to thank her for entrusting the whole story with him, for listening to his in return, but the words didn't come. Just as she was about to finish, he found himself stopping her where she was, his other hand on top of hers on his arm. She looked up sharply, a brief flicker of understanding flashing in her golden, slitted eyes. Aryon wasn't the type to pass up an invitation, and he met her halfway in a burning kiss. After all, sleep was a long way off from now.
The final word of the shout to confront Miraak with had come at a greater price than first expected. It was inevitable that the secrets of the Skaal would have to be divulged, but the manner in which it had happened hadn't been expected at all. Mora had extracted the knowledge directly from Storn's thoughts, causing his death in the process. That certainly hadn't been part of the bargain, but they hadn't specified such a thing either. Such was the way of dealing with Daedra.
Amid the mourning, however, there was a small bit of hope now that Laje-tal acquired the final word of the shout. At least now there would be the chance at freeing everyone from Miraak's control. It was uncertain how long she would have to spend inside the book world this time, but no doubt it would be much longer than any of the times before. Not wanting to ask any more favors of the already strained Skaal they returned to Raven Rock, taking refuge inside an abandoned house. They couldn't risk an extended period in the wilds.
From time to time another Dunmer woman came in and out of the lower level but she never seemed to do much more than use it to sleep while they took to the upper floor. They didn't exactly want to advertise that they had these potentially dangerous, valuable books. Aryon had put together enough supplies to last the night, and as they both settled on the ground near the wall, he watched with anticipation. "Are you ready?"
"If I'm not now, I don't know when I would be," she said plainly. "I'll take my time, though."
"Right. No sense rushing it and making mistakes. I'll wait for you." Once she entered Apocrypha he finished off the last of a cooked ash yam, writing more and more in his increasingly small travel journal. Too much more adventuring and he would have to pick up another, not that he minded. Absently he wondered what sort of book all of this might make, but then he wasn't sure when he might even have time to compile it. This thought suddenly reminded him of something.
Taking out a sketch he had made near Riften, he admired the interesting view of the mountain range separating Skyrim from Morrowind. The whole area had caught his eye in passing, mainly because of a very interesting rift in the ground they had found. Deep in the many layers of soil, they had found a thin, gray, pasty layer. It was unlike anything they had ever found in Skyrim, but it was exactly like what they had known on Vvardenfell. At a layer this deep, it had to have been from the first eruption during the first era, Sun's Death. Even all the way out there, the eruption had deposited ash. That had been the same time the Dwemer disappeared and the Dunmer were created as a unique race.
Downstairs a Redoran guard came in, clearly looking for someone. Aryon unconsciously drew further back towards the wall, ready to cast a temporary invisibility spell over both of them if necessary. Briefly he wondered when he had become so paranoid. Luckily it had been the other tenant of the abandoned house he had been looking for and the woman left with him, leaving Aryon to sigh with relief. Somehow he didn't think that a Redoran guard would much like two Telvanni mages tampering with Daedric artifacts in their town. This was going to be quite the wait.
It was a good few hours later that Laje-tal finally returned to herself, but it was her grin of satisfaction that reassured him the most. She stretched out her stiff limbs, answering before he could ask. "In the end, Mora turned on him. I was about to strike him down, but he disappeared into a dark pool. He was grabbed up and finished off, then Mora sent me back. It's over now. Everyone should be free."
"Good, because we had better get out of here. There's a Redoran guard that comes in now and then, and I don't think he will be ignorant of the upper floor much longer." Once she stuffed the black book away in her pack they left the house quietly, avoiding as many people as they could. It wasn't meant to be, though, and a Redoran guard slowed as they passed, peering at their Telvanni ropes with palpable suspicion.
"Stop right there, you two! This is House Redoran territory, you're not allowed to be here. What is your business in Raven Rock? Are you agents of Neloth?"
Laje-tal couldn't help but laugh. Just the idea of being an agent of Neloth was hilarious. "Us? No, never!" The guard seemed startled by her being the one to speak, his suspicion growing. Luckily she could think on her feet. "We have come from Skyrim to meet with Councilor Morvayn regarding the current state of affairs in Raven Rock and what might be done to help the town. We heard that the mine has been shut down and thought other trade might be established here."
If anything he only affected even more disbelief, but then he was of House Redoran. They were simply like that. "I'll let Councilor Morvayn be the judge of that. If you really are here on business, he should be expecting you."
She didn't miss Aryon's amused glance as they were shepherded inside the governor's house. No doubt he was wondering how she was going to handle this one, but she had a good, if lucrative, notion how. After all, Mistress Brara had known her. Once inside, though, it wasn't Brara at all, it was Lleril Morvayn. Well.
"And just who are you?" the Dunmer asked, brows furrowing with confusion. Telvanni? In his house?
The guard shoved them a little further forward, keeping a close eye on them. "Envoys from Skyrim," he said with dripping sarcasm. "Said something about trading goods with Raven Rock. I wonder if you were expecting them."
Before Lleril could object, Laje-tal stepped closer, supposing a full introduction was the best and only way to save the situation. "I don't believe we have met, in all honesty, but I did know Brara Morvayn back during my time on Vvardenfell. She was one of the councilors who supported my claim as Hortator. You, though, probably know me best as the Nerevarine." Naturally they laughed. It was a tall claim, after all. It was just the sort of distraction she had needed, but now it was time to stop playing around. Showing the moon and star ring to each of them, she felt just a little frustrated that there might be more of this nonsense to come if she intended to be known. "I'm sure there have been many stories surrounding the Nerevarine, enough for the greater public to forget who exactly it was, but surely this is proof enough."
Behind her, the guard was unimpressed. "A fake, most likely. I knew you were both up to something."
Just then an older Dunmer man came in, bringing a whole pile of goods into the manor. Upon seeing Aryon, though, he almost dropped his bundle in his excitement. "Why Master Aryon, you're still alive! And Laje-tal! I never thought I would see either of you again after you left Solstheim."
Lleril frowned, recognizing the man as the only original settler left alive. "You know these two, Unel?"
He only chuckled at that, setting down his burden. "How could I not? Without them there would be no Raven Rock! Funded the whole mission after the East Empire Company cut us off."
"Is that so?" Seeming a bit less skeptical, he looked at his visitors more closely, remembering vaguely Brara mentioning something about an Argonian and a Telvanni wizard. Yes, now that he thought of it, she had been forewarned about the Vvardenfell eruption by the Arch-Magister of house Telvanni, who was curiously enough mentioned being an Argonian and the Nerevarine, though nobody ever believed it. Now it made sense. An Argonian wouldn't have been able to live this long, but maybe the Nerevarine could. There was one way to be sure. "It was said that you got corprus during your quest, is that right?"
Somewhat surprised at his extent of knowledge, she was caught a bit off guard, but the Redoran did often know some rather strange things for no apparent reason. Pulling back her collar enough to show the long, unmistakable streak of corprus damage on the back of her neck, she remembered how the prophecy had gone. "The curse of flesh before him flies, and blight nor age may harm him. I suppose you know what that means. Hm, now that I think of it, Redoran had a presence in Ghostgate, they probably saw several people get the disease. Or maybe you read Divayth Fyr's symposium on it?"
"I didn't," he admitted, "but there were several in the house who were interested in it after dealing with the ash creatures for such a long time. The cure did seem to work on a few who were treated soon after contracting the disease, but it had the side effect of leaving them immortal. We probably wouldn't have even realized that if two of those patients hadn't been humans. So you really are the Nerevarine."
She nodded. "That, and Arch-Magister of House Telvanni, and now it seems I'm the Dragonborn as well. I honestly don't know what I have done to attract so much prophecy, but we really would like to help Raven Rock in any way we can. If the mines are dried out, maybe you would be able to trade with Skyrim."
"I don't know what else we could trade except for our food and drink. There's nothing else but that and the mine, and barely enough of either. Ask the miners if you want, at least a few of them swear there has to be more ebony still deep down further in the mine, but I don't know about that. If you find something out, I'll be glad to hear it."
"We'll do what we can." Shaking out her hands, feeling magic unwillingly building up in her veins, she knew she had to get out of here before something exploded. Somehow this only happened at the times she didn't want or need it to. Aryon saw this and stepped closer, distracting the others.
"Regardless of what Neloth might say, you will have at least this side of House Telvanni's support. We may have been opposed before, but with Vvardenfell gone and the mainland weakened, we'll need to work together. Let's go take a look at that mine." Fortunately they escaped the manor without any major disaster, but as soon as they were outside, Laje-tal rushed to the gate leading out of Raven Rock, trying to keep it all down.
"Do you have any seeds?" She turned to him with a slight bit of nervousness, focusing on just getting out of that gate. "Something that needs a lot of energy?"
"Just a few samples of trama root. Will that be enough?"
"I hope so." The guards at the gate looked at them strangely but seemed to just be glad that they were leaving, and the moment they were behind a large escarpment, she took the small roots he handed her. One of them she didn't even bother to put into the ground, cupping it with both hands and feeding it as much energy as she could release at once. The small root swelled and expanded, growing at a rate that would have taken it a whole year to grow on its own. As it grew more and more, the roots reached down to the ground where she finally let it go, watching as it dug deep into the soil.
Aryon watched from a safe distance, wondering as he often did how magic seemed to build up in her until it just about burst. Even after all of this time and training it was still a liability, and after going the entire day without doing any sort of magic in the real world, he figured it was to be expected that she would have plenty to burn off. The few trama roots were now growing unnaturally large, and he frowned as he watched the progress. "Not too much more, we don't want them to look suspicious."
With a jerk of her hands she cut off the magic, still feeling like she had barely done anything at all. "I'll need something else, then."
He sighed, not knowing how much more could be done out here that wouldn't attract too much attention. Lightning and fire spells were too dangerous in her current state, and conjuration was entirely out of the question. Frost magic may well affect a major portion of the island. "Let's get closer to Tel Mithryn, at least out there we can blame Neloth for it."
Now that was something she very much liked the idea of. "I'll make him an entire trama root statue shaped like a spriggan. I'm sure he will love it. He always loved my sculptures."
On the way to Tel Mithryn, the day had taken an interesting turn. An abandoned farmhouse along the road had been all but overtaken by ash spawn, a lone Redoran guard fighting them off. Laje-tal of course jumped on the chance to use as much magic as she cared to on the creatures, burning, freezing or shocking in whatever order came about. The guard turned out to be Captain Veleth, someone they had seen in town a couple times. He accepted their help a bit more readily than the other Redorans might have, and even directed them to something very intriguing – the ash creatures being sent by no other than Falx Carius.
Naturally the Imperial was quite dead and had been for quite a while. It smelled of vampirism or more likely necromancy. Normally necromancy done under the correct circumstances was more or less allowed, but this was clearly not done in such a way. "I feel bad for him," Laje-tal said as they walked along the shore towards the fort. "He was an Imperial, but he did try hard to make the progress on this island work out, and he held his own in Hircine's maze. Ah, all of that, only to get killed by debris. No, I'd rather find out who did this and put him back in his grave where he belongs."
The reality, as usual, was much better than the fiction, though, and as they ventured deeper and deeper into the ruined fort, it was almost like being in the Red Mountain wastes again with all of the ash creatures they found. Behind a locked door they found their target, armed and ready as always. It seemed he had some of a mind left, hesitating briefly when they entered. That small moment of hesitation was all that was needed to gain the advantage, but of course with Laje-tal in the state she was in, he probably couldn't have endured much more than he did. At least now things were set right.
Aryon handed over a journal he had found in the wreckage, pointing to a few key passages. "Ildari Sarothil. A Dunmer name for sure. Seems like we are not the only ones who have had trouble with Neloth."
She grabbed it with interest, reading and looking more grim as the record went on. This person was dealing with untested magic. "Heart stones. That refers to those strange ore samples that fell as pyroclastic deposits when the mountain erupted. I don't like this, and I don't like how this involves Neloth. He's already had his assistant summoning ash spawn, he shouldn't hear about this." Reading through the volume once more, committing it to memory, she then tossed it onto the ground, incinerating it with a blast of fire to mix in with all the rest of the ash. Then, of course, was the problem of what to do about the General.
"I'm sure his body must have a heart stone," Aryon surmised aloud, knowing what she was thinking. "Let's take it out and see what can be done with it. If we can learn about it faster than Neloth, we might be able to have an edge on him."
"I don't like this." Taking out a short dagger, she set about the grisly task of cutting out the heart stone. As much as she hated mutilating the body of someone she had once known, it was necessary. Prying out the small hard stone, glowing a wan red in the low light, it bore a small resemblance to something they had seen many times in the Reach. "Ah, I have an idea. Could you dig into my pack and find a briar heart? We might be able to stage this to look like Forsworn activity."
"Good idea. Are there hagraven feathers in there too?"
"Probably." The blood from the corpse was disgustingly sticky, the tacky substance making her fingers stick together. It had been bad enough to feel the aged, rubbery flesh bend more than tear under her dagger, but she tolerated it while Aryon found the spare ingredients. With a couple leather strips and a bit of knowhow on how Forsworn briarhearts were made, it was simple enough to make it look like the real thing. A few bloodied hagraven feathers, a couple common soulgems and just the right sort of bloody streaks hagravens might make and it may as well have been the top of a redoubt.
"Not bad. I sure would be fooled by that, and we spent a good amount of time in the Reach. Now what?"
"Now we make it look like hagravens came through here. Trace back the same way we came, I'll smooth the ash and do the rest." Like many Argonians, she had feet with three main toes and a higher residual claw in back, and though they were bigger than most hagravens had, all of the Argonians on Skyrim were the types with the more humanoid five toes. Not many would expect a Morrowind or Gideon Argonian to come all the way out here. After leaving several tracks in the most likely areas they left the fort, keeping to the areas that looked the grassiest or most windswept to hide their tracks in leaving. Only when they finally reached the sea did they pause to clean up.
"This water is vile." Aryon had gone to wash his hands in the water but quickly thought better of it. Just looking at it was enough to make one sick.
"Here." Drawing on frost magic, she created an ice crystal between her hands, holding it out to him. "It's alright, I can keep it steady now."
"I sure hope so." Casting a small fire spell with his own hands, he set about melting the crystal into water. It required concentration on both their parts, the balance needing to be just right to make it work. Too much ice and the water was cold or frozen, too much fire and it was too hot or boiled off. The fire had to be suspended in just such a way that he could catch the water with his hands but not put out the fire. It wasn't the best solution, but eventually they had cleaned up enough to manage for the meantime. "Hm, you know, the day after tomorrow is Talen's wedding."
"Has it been that long?" Flicking off the last that remained of the blood and dirt on her hands, she looked at him curiously. "Think we could make it to Riften by then?"
"If we hurry. I don't think there's much more we can do on Solstheim for the time being. We did agree to look at the mine, but we didn't say when it might get done. Neloth should be led astray long enough with this matter of the General and the heart stones. There is still the problem of dragons returning to life." He grinned at her playfully. "Well what do you think, oh great Dragonborn?"
"I think you've been inhaling too much ash."
