Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. It's about damn time I posted an update. Before we begin: Thank you Supergoddad. I'm glad that you are so thoroughly sold on Ieago's adventures. To you folks out there like Chris, Legolas, Naruto, and Sokat who have been sticking this out for three years now, thank you. I don't know what else to say.


I heaved on the heavy torque of Valthume's door and conducted my party into a forbidding antechamber. We beheld a skeleton seated on a bare stone chair. His grin was filled with menace as he sat there with a hand on the hilt of the sword lying across his knees. A rust pitted helm was on the floor at his feet. We walked past the long dead guardian.

It was Morgan to notice that Ghent had not come with us. When I looked back, I saw him gazing vacantly at the skeleton.

"Ghent?" Morgan called gently, "What are you looking at? Ghent?" she called again when he didn't respond immediately.

Ghent tore his gaze away from the human remains with an effort and kept trying to glance back.

"Are you alright Ghent?" Morgan asked.

He winced at the question. "I—I'm fine," he lied, "I just wanted a closer look, that's all. It's not our way to leave someone out like this," he tried to explain.

"I'm sure the circumstances surrounding this man's interment were fascinating. Unless he's the arch-priest of this city however, our study of the doorman will have to wait," Achenar said from behind be. I turned to follow him, but not without a concerned glance over my shoulder at Ghent.

The great chamber of Valthume was breathtaking in its scale. The Jarl of this ancient holdfast would have been able to feast hundreds with ease. When necessary thousands could have packed within to witness their overlord's decree. The palace was built for defense as well. Just two narrow passages, one now hopelessly blocked with debris, permitted access deeper into the mountain.

This appreciation was lost on Achenar, however. He had eyes only for the large stone coffin resting on a round platform before the chamber's iron throne. His delight in such a quick find was moderated when we found that the lid would not come off, no matter how hard he, Ghent, and I heaved on the crowbars we'd brought.

"There is a geas on the coffin," Nuala said with her left hand in the air and eyes closed. Her gestures swept the wall behind the chamber's throne. "The mana-lines go deeper into the catacombs."

"Then we know what's next, don't we Diocletian?" Achenar asked snidely. "Oh! Your hireling is staring off into the ether again."

True enough, Ghent had taken an interest in the hall's high-backed iron throne and the brass basin directly at its feet. He was the only one over there, yet as I came closer he appeared to be having quite the conversation. There was a distant look on his face again and I could have sworn I heard him muttering under his breath in the dragon language.

"Nirn to Ghent," I said, rocking his shoulder gently. His eyes took a long minute to focus on me. I lowered my voice, "Are you positive you're alright? Would it be better if you withdrew?"

Ghent shook his head fiercely, but when he spoke he sounded deeply distracted and anxious. "No! It's just that there's something going on here. I can…sense things. But nothing's coming into focus."

The feeling of deep misgiving started deep in my chest spread to my gut like a stain. "If you say so Ghent, but stay close to Morgan, alright?"

"I'll be fine Ie—ah—Diocletian."

Have you ever been able to hear your day going to shit?


Valthume's interior consisted of long and narrow hallways connecting a series of cramped chambers. Each room off the main hall had a clear purpose: We passed more than one wizard's laboratory complete with a familiar enchanting table and alchemy lab. We passed an armory filled with decaying weapons. A third chamber looked to be a shrine where the draugr were embalmed. It was strange however, that the whole complex felt deserted and idle. We encountered half a dozen chambers where intact draugr lay at rest, but none woke to move against us.

Our present hallway was about to terminate in a medium-sized chapel when I thought I saw a light wavering from within. I drew my sword and motioned for my charges to hold back. I crept forward and stretched out with my enhanced senses, but I could neither hear footsteps nor smell the smoke of the flickering torch the stranger was carrying.

I was about to peer into the open space when a powerful hand lurched me back into the shadows of the hall. I felt myself be thrown bodily against the wall. "Don't let him see you!" Ghent said in a shaky whisper. His eyes were glowing a faint, cold blue beneath his hood. When I looked away from my troubled friend, there was no sign of anyone in the room ahead.

"Let's take a few minutes here," Achenar commanded. "Perhaps it will calm our mage's frayed nerves."

We spread out into the room and paired off. Morgan and Ghent sat in a corner while Achenar and Nuala looked closely at the altar. I sat on one of the rearmost benches with Aela. "How are you holding up?" I asked her.

She shrugged at rubbed her neck, "I'm not as bad as Ghent, but this place doesn't feel like it should. I sense anticipation. Like some vigil is about to end."

"What about other tombs?" I asked, just above a whisper.

"Sometimes fear. Usually regret. Always anger," she told me in the same voice.

I got up and walked over to see what Achenar found so interesting about the chapel's altar.

"This arrangement isn't far off from the process described in the Necrom Codex. These channels drain the blood away and into the stone," Nuala was explaining. "It would run through hollows and out through these three spouts. They would be called the Mouths of the Soul, Animus, and Coil. After the emptying, the remains would be preserved and united with the phylactery

"You know a great deal about necromancy," I commented while looking at the grooves in the large stone table that Nula was pointing out.

"Unlike the sniveling prima-donnas of Cyrodiil's schools, we in Alinor embrace all learning," she sniffed.

"Save it for later. Both of you," Achenar scolded. "What comes after my dear?"

"Simplicity itself: the blood must be mixed again and returned to its owner. The vessels are likely in this complex."

"It appears that Valthume was abandoned before Hevnoraak's plans could come to fruition," Achenar mused.

The three of us jerked around at the sound of Ghent speaking immediately behind us. "Orin ko dinok mu aam ex." He said.

"Your mystic is getting worse," Nuala commented, waving a hand into Ghent's vacant stare and getting no response.

"Or better as far as we're concerned. These lapses of his are getting longer," Achenar observed, "Mage, what did you say to us? What is Valthume telling you but not us?

I held my tongue. Ghent had just told us, "Even in death we serve him."

But the blue-clad wizard was unresponsive to Achenar, who merely sighed his disappointment. He pointed down the hall. I led the way into the dark.


The chamber at the end of the hall was bright and welcoming after the hall itself. The whole tunnel had been dedicated by its builders to torture. The long, straight path was lined by small rooms with windows looking out onto the hall at regular intervals. In the center of each was a rack or a table. A handful of cages stood against the walls. Some were still occupied with desiccated captives, hands over their weeping faces or clutching the iron bands, still desperate after ages of captivity.

"We could always hear," Ghent said in a rare near-lucid moment. His behavior was constantly disturbing by now. I had handed his sword over to Morgan after he tried to pick a fight with the contents of a closet. In almost every room we visited he would hover near one object or another. He would converse quietly with people only he could hear. Ghent would sometimes speak in modern Cyrodiilic, but most of the time only I understood the language.

"Whoever designed this place was an artist," Nuala mused with grudging admiration. "The screams in one chamber could echo into every cell in the hall."

I ignored her and did my best to enjoy the fresh air of the terminal chamber. Skylights filled the teardrop shaped room with a comforting natural light. The air that wafted in was cool and damp. The rough-hewn walls were decorated with dark green moss. Tufts of grass and dandelions poked up from the cracked paving stones near the upright coffin at the end of the room. A shallow basin similar to the one before Hevnoraak's throne stood in the midst of the calm scene. In of itself, the basin was nothing spectacular. My mother used one almost identical to it as a bird bath in her garden back in Kvatch. But within was a gleaming black stone jar. The onyx vessel was carved with hundreds of perfect facets and was tightly sealed.

Still behind me in the hall, I head Ghent began to weep, "Rok mindok. Rok Koraav."

I had the time to think, "He knows. He sees," before a wight in black steel armor stepped from the coffin before me. His eyes glowed blue with cool rage. I saw a lipless jaw appear from the bottom of his tall helmet and he Shouted, "Fus ro dah!"

The tremendous power of the ancient Tongue blasted us back into the hall of pain. I was the first to recover from the Unrelenting Force. I picked myself up and drew the blade of Cyrodiil's legions. The draugr was content to wait in his room, his long sword swinging slowly in a lazy eight.

"Zaamman," he rasped at me, "Mahfaeraak kren zahkiu nau Bronu dwiin."

I poured every ounce of my race's arrogance into my reply, "All who have denied our freedom have perished."

My polished sword shot out like a lightning. He parried close to his body, the corroded blade's weight throwing me off balance. A slugging match ensued, the fury of the ancient north against the dignity of the south while our friends and enemies looked on.

The duel was long and hard-fought, but the offended dignity of the south would not suffer another stain. The draugr used his Shout once again, throwing me back into a wall. I pushed with my rebound, driving my blade through the creature's teeth. A stomp broke his knee and brought him low. I withdrew the blade and crowned the undead through his rusted helm with a single great arc.

My blade came free of the draugr's head with a final stomp and a dry crunch. The only two to not look on me with worry were Achenar, who went to inspect the carved jar. And Ghent, still a source of worry in his distracted state.

"The soldiers among the living should be thankful there are not two swordsmen of your caliber in the Legion, Quaestor," Achnenar said over his shoulder. He was gazing with unconcealed wonder at the flawless artifact in his hands. I bowed to acknowledge the complement and turned to leave with Aela beside me.


More to come this weekend.