The Wind Stone stood before them, and the brainless chant filled their ears once again. The Word Terah needed to use felt oddly similar to the Word she learned in the temple. Something about it made her uneasy, and she wasn't sure what effect it would have on the Stone.

"Stand back, Teldryn," she warned. "I'm not sure what this will do."

Terah moved closer to the Stone, stepping in the tainted water that surrounded it. Might as well just get this over with.

"Gol!"

The enslaved villagers' progress on the Stone completely disintegrated, and they snapped out of their trance. Terah immediately received a flurry of concerned and confused questions.

"What's going on?"

"What happened?"

"How did I get here?"

"It's okay," Terah assured them. "You're free now."

No one noticed how the water began to boil black as she spoke. Something shot right up out of the water, knocking Terah on her butt. The massive creature towered over Terah as it let out a blood-curdling shriek.

Teldryn immediately ran in and snatched her up by the arm. "Get up, woman!" Terah found her footing and unsheathed her Dragonbane blade. The villagers screamed and panicked, which certainly didn't help the situation.

"Go! Get back to the village!" she yelled to them before getting smacked to the ground by the hideous beast. She let out a startled yelp, but she hadn't badly injured.

As she fumbled back onto her feet, she swore she heard Teldryn cry out in pain. The dragonborn rushed in for an attack, carefully dodging the creature's blows since she knew she wasn't strong enough to block them. She struck it, burned it, electrified it, but the thing just never quit. Finally, the tip of an Elven sword protruded out of the middle of the creature's abdomen, and Teldryn let it fall to the ground. But he collapsed to the ground as well.

"Oh, no. No no no no no. . ." she repeated as she dropped to her knees at his side. Fearing what she might see, she carefully removed his helmet.

Black ooze trickled from the sides of his mouth, striking Terah with panic that she had to quickly put down. He made strangled, pained grunts, and the sight of him nearly broke her heart. "Not you too!" she exclaimed.

His fingers dug deep into the snow as he did everything he could to keep himself under control.

"I'm gonna make it go away, Teldryn," she said hastily. "I promise."

Teldryn could barely hear her, and his vision blurred in and out of focus. One moment, he could see the Nord's little worried face, and the next moment, it was gone. She was forcing some kind of liquid down his throat, which he greedily swallowed the best he could. Despite having been poisoned with the foulest of poisons, Teldryn was remaining surprisingly calm.

The effects of the poison were beginning to wear off; his vision was coming back into focus, the throbbing in his ears was subsiding, and the pain that wracked through his body was quickly fading away. Luckily, Terah had been taught at a young age how to separate poisons from the bloodstream. Since she caught it quickly and forced a potion down his throat, she managed to pull it off.

The mercenary coughed and spluttered for a good minute as Terah roughly patted his back. Once his choking subsided, he was able to speak, "That was unpleasant."

Heaving a sigh, she hoisted the man up and onto his feet. "Let's agree to avoid getting ourselves poisoned again."

"Agreed," he said in annoyance.

They glanced over to the mysterious black creature, observing how its black blood boiled out of its wounds. Upon getting closer for inspection, they could see its slimy black skin and razor-sharp teeth. It was much larger than a human, but wasn't as big as a giant.

"Sheogorath's beard, that's an ugly one," said Teldryn distastefully.

The dragonborn slowly nodded in agreement as she glared disgustedly at the thing. "I must say," she said as she handed him his helmet. "You handled that poison much better than I did."

Once his face was covered again, he replied, "Yes, but I'm sure you had it much worse. And if it weren't for you, I'd be a dead man." His tone became much lighter, and it almost sounded like he was smiling. "Thank you, Outlander."

She rose her brows at him, "So now I'm 'Outlander,' hm?"

Terah received no reply, but she was sure he was smirking at her or something underneath that ugly helmet of his.

Shaking her head, she said, "Whatever, Mister Mysterious. Let's get back to the village. Then you'll get to watch me Shout at some more Stones."

"Oh, good," he drawled. "I'm simply dying with anticipation."

It was basically pointless to go back to the Skaal village. Storn already knew of their success, having seen that his people returned. Nevertheless, he shared some valuable information about a wizard named Neloth from Tel Mithryn, who apparently knew a lot about black books, so Terah figured they'd pay him a visit after they cleansed the rest of the All-Maker Stones.

First stop: Earth Stone. It wasn't the nearest one to them, but it was Teldryn's home, and that was certainly something they could go out of their way for, as far as she was concerned. The two were not far from the town's side entrance now.

Teldryn suddenly pointed a finger, "Look, just ahead. Ash spawn."

Struggling to keep the ash out of her eyes, Terah tried peering ahead, but to no avail. "I can't see a thing, Teldryn."

"That looks like. . . Captain Veleth," he said as he continued forward with a quickened pace. "Nice to see that he's kept himself together."

The Nord woman scurried along with her short legs as she tried to keep up with his pace. Her eyes finally confirmed what Teldryn had spotted, and they both drew their weapons to assist the man with taking down the ashy vermin.

"Thanks," panted the exhausted Dunmer as he sheathed his battle axe. "If you two hadn't showed up, I don't think I would've made it off this farm alive."

He had an accent that was somewhat different from the other Raven Rock citizens she had encountered, so Terah figured that he was originally from another part of Morrowind. From the looks of his short-shaven haircut, his skill with his battle axe, and the title of "Captain" that he carried, she could tell he was a warrior and a soldier through and through.

"Glad to see you're still kickin', Teldryn."

"You too," he replied.

"And who is this outlander you're traveling with?" Veleth asked with a hint of a smile as he took in the little Nord's appearance.

She always thought that most native Dunmer appeared mean, menacing, or inhospitable, but Veleth gave her a completely different vibe. His light tone of voice and open friendliness, along with the tenderness in his bright red eyes, put her at ease and made her feel comfortable. Plus, there was no disdain in the way he called her "outlander," as opposed to the rest of the Dunmer in Raven Rock.

"Terah," she introduced as she smiled from behind her kerchief.

He nodded his head in acknowledgement, "Captain Modyn Veleth of the Redoran Guard. Pleasure."

Teldryn got straight to the point, "You have any idea how many are left?"

The captain sighed. "Not many. Just me, Councilor Arano, and some of my men. I don't really know how we've fought it for so long."

"It won't be a problem anymore," Terah piped. "We're here to help."

"Really now?" he skeptically asked with a raised brow. "No offense, little one, but I really don't think there's anything you could do. Trust me, Arano has tried everything to get his precious Councilor Morvayn out of this mess."

She had to fight rolling her eyes at him. Little one. Pfft.

Teldryn couldn't resist a chuckle, obviously sensing her irritation. "She's dragonborn, Captain. She's already worked her magic on one of the Stones."

She groaned, "Teldryn-"

"What? He was going see it happen anyways."

"The dragonborn herself has come to save the day?" Veleth asked, dumbfounded by the fact that someone important actually cared about Raven Rock. "I think you left that out in the introduction."

"I don't like to brag," she shrugged. "Now can we get to that damn Stone already?"

The dragonborn took the liberty of walking ahead of them, not bothering to see if they were following her or not.

"A Nord that doesn't like to brag," Veleth said to Teldryn as they kept a short distance behind her. "Quite a rare creature."

"That's basically what I said."

"Really, though," he said in a hushed voice as he observed how the dragonborn's hips slightly swayed as she walked. "This little thing is the dragonborn?"

Teldryn snorted, "I thought the same thing."

"I can hear you, you know," Terah called over her shoulder.

The men laughed as they continued to pick on the outlander all the way to the Earth Stone.

The moment Terah used her Shout, two of those same foul creatures burst through the water, but taking them down was manageable with Captain Veleth's help this time. After the monsters had been slain, the captain professionally explained to the startled and confused citizens what happened and assured them that they could safely return to their homes. He made sure to give both Teldryn and Terah credit for their rescue, but never mentioned anything about the outlander being dragonborn.

A gentle hand rested on Terah's shoulder, catching her attention. The moment she turned around, an accented voice spoke to her, "You are the one who has helped my people?" The voice belonged to a Dunmer man with golden-blonde hair and a face that wore pure exhaustion. His voice was smoother than most Dunmer, and his ash-covered fine clothes suggested that he was a man of high status.

"Yes, for the most part," she replied from behind her kerchief.

He smiled wearily at her as he gently squeezed her shoulder, "You have my utmost gratitude, Outlander. I will make sure you are properly rewarded for your troubles. As for now, I invite you to stay for a while, have a drink or two."

"Oh, no, that won't be necessary. Thank you," she said kindly. "I'd love to stick around but I need to get the other Stones. Eat something. You probably haven't eaten in days."

The dragonborn turned on her heels and briskly walked away, leaving the man to stare at her with curious interest.

Two down, four more to go.

Water. Tree. Beast. Sun. It had taken three days to complete their mission, but they had finally cleansed all of the All-Maker Stones. The mushroom settlement could be seen just ahead of them, and Terah was eager to finally get indoors and rest a little. Teldryn led her to the tallest mushroom house, but grabbed her elbow and stopped her just outside the door.

"Listen, I've been here once when I was hired to deliver some supplies," he explained before removing his helmet. Gloved fingers ran through his mohawk as his expression turned serious. "Let me handle this. The last thing we want to do is piss these people off."

Pulling down her kerchief, she replied, "What, you don't think I have the charm and charisma to convince some wizard to look at a book?"

He shot her a look, "Don't take it personally, sera. The Telvanni are the most inhospitable Dunmer on this island. Trust me." He raised his helmet up over his head and hooked it onto his back, keeping it secure and conveniently out of the way.

She looked at him confusedly before pulling the black book out of her pack and handing it to him. Did he just call me "sera"?

With a sharp tilt of his head, he motioned her to follow him as he pushed the door open. Confusion washed over Terah when she took in her new settings; the only way they could go was up. The cylindrical room was only about eight feet in diameter, and blue magic flowed up from the center towards the main part of the tower.

After shutting the door behind them, Teldryn snaked an arm around her waist.

She immediately tensed and whispered uncomfortably, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Relax, sera," he calmly whispered into her ear as he pulled her closer to him. He proceeded to escort her into the blue magic and tightened his grip on her as it rose them up to the main room. Terah struggled to regain her balance when her dragonscale boots met the wooden platform beneath her, yet Teldryn seemed to handle it with ease.

A young Dunmer man in yellow robes spotted them first. He briskly approached the two, and from the look of disdain on his face, Terah didn't think they were very welcome at all.

"You are not welcome here," he warned. "Does Master Neloth know about you?"

"No," Teldryn answered, completely unintimidated. "But he'll certainly want to know about this," he said as he raised the wretched book up to show to him.

The young Dunmer seemed to already know what it was. "Yes, Master Neloth thoroughly enjoys studying Black Books, so hand it to me and be off."

Just as he reached out for it, Teldryn quickly withdrew the book from his grasp. "I don't think so. It's important that we speak to him directly."

He replied impatiently, "I'm afraid he is busy at the moment and cannot be disturbed. You can leave the book here and -"

"No, we don't have the time," said Teldryn firmly. "It is very urgent that we speak with him."

The younger Dunmer folded his arms across his chest in defiance. "Do you realize -"

"Is there a problem here?" said a strikingly familiar voice.

Terah snapped her head towards the person who had spoken, and was beyond surprised by who she saw. The wood elf looked exactly the same since she had last seen him, besides the fact that he was covered in ash. He still had wooden-brown skin, gray lips, spiky brown hair, and a certain essence of misery that haunted his eyes.

"Malborn?!"

I figured heck, why not give Malborn some love. Especially since I initially thought that he would be much more involved in the story.

*small SPOILER* For those of you who don't know, if he survives, you can help him flee to Morrowind. (not much of a spoiler, but I didn't wanna piss anyone off lol)

If any of you are Malborn fans, you'll be seeing some more of him in my fics.